Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement
The Progressive Movement was an effort to cure many of the ills of American
society that had developed during the great spurt of industrial growth in the last quarter of
the 19th century. The frontier (The West) had been tamed, great cities and businesses
developed, and an overseas empire established, but not all citizens shared in the new
wealth, prestige, and optimism.
The success of Progressivism owed much to publicity generated by the muckrakers,
writers who detailed the horrors of poverty, urban slums, dangerous factory conditions,
and child labor, among a host of other ills. Jacob Riis exposed the poor living
conditions of the tenement slums in How the Other Half Lives(1890), which led
to significant legislation establishing minimum safety and housing standards in
tenements. In The Shame of the Cities(1904), Lincoln Steffens exposed the
rampant political corruption in the party machines of Chicago and New York,
arguing that the political machines served the interests of businessmen and
special privileges. The Jungle, published by Upton Sinclair in 1906, traced an
immigrant family's exploitation and the unsanitary practices prevalent in
Chicago's meat packing industry. The outrage provoked by the novel contributed
to the enactment of the Meat Inspection Act in 1906, the first legislation of its
kind to set minimum standards for food and drug production.
Theodore Roosevelt became the next President because President McKinley was
assassinated. He came from a rich family and believed in a strong government that
would step in if the state was not doing their job well enough. Think of it like being a
good parent. If a parent watches their child and sees their child doing everything right,
the mom or dad will leave the child alone. However, if they assigned something for the
child to do and the child is messing everything up, the mom or dad will step in and take
care of the mess. Roosevelt firmly believed that the government should step in to clean
up the messes that Americans have made. Therefore, he was a great progressive
president since the aim is to cure all of the ills of the time period.
All the reforms of his term as President is called the SQUARE
DEAL.
Trust Busting
There is fair competition and unfair competition. The problem in the U.S. in the early
1900s was unfair competition. Here is a great example of how trusts ruin fair
competition:
Costco gas’ competition is Shell, 76, Chevron, Arco, and Texaco. Gas is really expensive
at all gas stations at about $4/gallon. Since everyone charges around $4 for gas, Costco
decides to charge $2/gallon. Everyone flocks over to Costco to buy their cheap gas to the
point that all other gas stations have to close down b/c of a lack of business.
Now, Costco is the only gas station because they have eliminated all of their competition.
They put a new sign up that says that gas is $6/gallon!!! Everyone must buy from them
or else there is no one else to buy from.
Theodore Roosevelt is known as the LION TAMER because the lions are the trusts and
he is the tamer. He is also known as the Trust Buster. He didn’t take away all the trusts
but he did work to take away any trust that wronged the American public.
He used the already-existing Sherman Anti-trust Law in order to break up over
44 trusts during his stint as President. He did not want to destroy the trusts. He wanted
them to be regulated.
Pure Food and Drug
Many companies falsely advertised their medicine bottles claiming that it could grow
hair, cure cancer, or make you thin in days. Americans consumed many of these pills and
wound up extremely sick or even dead. Some simply wasted their money on these
different medicines while nothing happened at all. As the public was tricked, the
business men made tons of money off of their lies.
Many so-called medicines contained opium (a drug extracted from poppy seeds), cocaine,
and alcohol. Addictions to medicines were common and, again, led to death.
The meat-packing industry used harmful preservatives in order to keep meat from
looking and tasting spoiled. They called this “embalmed beef” b/c the Egyptians
“embalmed” human organs in order to save them for hundreds of years w/o decomposing.
The same was done for meat in the meat-packing factories. Everyone today knows eating
embalmed beef would not be healthy but this was not common knowledge back in the
late 1800s and early 1900s.
The muckrakers had successfully heightened public awareness of safety issues stemming
from careless food preparation procedures and the increasing incidence of drug addiction
from patent medicines.
Congress passed a Pure Food and Drug bill in 1906 which stopped the sale of
contaminated foods/medicines and called for the TRUTH in labeling. The following
were also a result of the Pure Food and Drug bill:
1) Created the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which had the
responsibility of testing all foods and drugs destined for human consumption.
Today, no food ends up in the markets w/o going through the FDA.
2) Requires all patients to have a written prescription from a licensed doctor before a
purchasing certain drugs
3) All addicting drugs (like Vicadin) requires a warning label.
Civil Rights
All of the Presidents during the Progressive Era (Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson) all failed
to support the Civil Rights of the African Americans. A few individuals’ ideas were
supported (Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Dubois) but besides these two men, White
American dealt w/ many of their own issues and not the issue of Civil Rights for the
Blacks.
Many A.A were angry b/c they thought, “How can you worry about stupid “progressive
issues” like conserving trees and saving water when human beings are not equal in
America’s eyes!”
Booker T. Washington believed that African Americans should accept
segregation but prove the Whites wrong by becoming a strong economic force through
the Industrial Revolution. He opened up the Tuskegee Institute which served as a
vocational college for Black men to learn a trade and work.
W.E.B. Dubois wanted immediate social and economic equality.
He believed that
the only way Blacks could receive respect was through higher education. He authored
the book Souls of Black Folk in which he talks about the Black struggle and how many
people do not see the racism. Because the government was helping everyone else but the
African Americans, he created (w/ the help of White men and women) the National
Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) which aimed for
equality among all the races (Black, Latino, Asian). The NAACP is still alive and well
today.
Booker T. Washington
W.E.B. Dubois
Conservation
It had long been believed in the United States that the supply of new lands and natural
resources was unlimited. In 1890, however, the Director of the Census announced that a
western frontier no longer existed. The last remaining reserved area, the Oklahoma
Territory, had been opened for settlement in the previous year. Every livable area in the
United States has now been settled on!!! Other remaining unoccupied lands were largely
either arid (too dry) or mountainous for anyone to live on.
A bitter debate followed—and continues today—should we tap out America’s resources
and use to our advantage in order to become a world power or should we conserve nature
since we never know when we’re going to run out?
By the1900s, several things were evident:
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Forests throughout the country were depleted (all gone); only about 20 percent of
the original woodlands remained in 1900
Much of the nation’s farmland was exhausted by overuse
Extractive industries such as oil, gas, and minerals were extracting away in order
to make millions.
Water rights were increasingly coming under the control of private parties who
did not care about water conservation.
Ranchers let their cows overgraze which led to a lack of greens on the plains
Cities dumped sewage into rivers and streams
Lumber companies cut down trees w/o planting new trees
Theodore Roosevelt, a sportsman and naturalist, sided with the conservationists.
Progressive effort was devoted to changing the way America used its land, especially
in the West. The Newlands Act of 1902 placed the federal government in an
activist role in the areas of water management and reclamation.
The president, with the aid and encouragement of Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot,
worked to preserve more than 170 million acres, mostly in the West, in the forms of
national parks and monuments. The following constitute a portion of Roosevelt’s legacy:
Mesa Verde National Park – Colorado
Grand Canyon National Monument – Arizona
Mount Olympus National Park – Washington
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument – New Mexico
Railroad Regulation
The Interstate Commerce Act was made in the 1880s for the poor farmers who
were being bullied by the railroads. It was created to help them but did very little. It
demanded the following:
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Shipping rates had to be "reasonable and just"
Rates had to be published
Secret rebates were outlawed
Since the Interstate Commerce Act did very little for the farmers, during the Progressive
Movement, some new legislations were passed in order to safeguard the people who’s
lives depended on the railroad.
Elkins Act (1903). The Elkins Act ended the common practice of the railroads granting
rebates to their most valued customers. The great oil and livestock companies of the day
paid the rates stated by the railroads, but bullied them to give rebates on those payments.
For example: John D. Rockefeller needs to ship 2,000 pounds of oil across from middle
America to the East Coast. He is powerful and has many strong men working beneath
him who bully the railroad companies into giving back some of the money Standard Oil
had to pay in shipping since they are giving them so much business.
The railroads did not want to lose their business, so they gave them their rebates.
Meanwhile, small farmers are being charged high prices to shipping and they get no
rebates! No fair!
The giants paid significantly less for rail service than farmers and other small operators.
So, no more rebates allowed to be given to the robberbarrons. They must pay the same
amount as the farmers.
Hepburn Act (1906). All the Hepburn Act did was strengthened the existing Interstate
Commerce Act even more by:
1) Increasing the size of the Interstate Commerce Commission from five to seven
members.
2) Giving the ICC the power to establish maximum rates
Political Reform
The election process was controlled by the political machines and bosses. The
most famous of these machines was the Tammany Hall Democratic organization
headed by William M. "Boss" Tweed in New York City. They took advantage of
immigrants and the poor in order to stay in power. Too many of these politicians
grew rich by blackmailing and bribing the American public and making deals with
big businesses and robberbarrons.
Progressives like Wisconsin Governor and Senator
Robert M. La
Follette sought to weaken the control of political machines and promote wider
citizen participation in the electoral process.
In several states, particularly in the West, progressive reformers advocated
forms of direct democracy, such as authorizing citizen groups through
"Initiative and Referendum" to propose new laws or to review the actions
of legislatures by getting citizen signatures on petitions.
The 17th Amendment allowed the citizens of the state to vote for their own
senators and leaders rather than have the leaders chosen through a corrupt
process of bribery and power.
Women’s Suffrage and Prohibition
Finally, on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment (it was passed in Senate
in 1919) to the U.S. Constitutution was ratified by Tennessee, granting women
the franchise throughout the country.
The leaders of the prohibition movement were alarmed at the drinking behavior
of Americans, and they were concerned that there was a culture of drink among
some sectors of the population that was spreading, especially with so many
Europeans immigrating to America.
The prohibition movement's strength grew, especially after the formation of the
Anti-Saloon League in 1893. The League, and other organizations that
supported prohibition such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,
soon began to succeed in enacting local prohibition laws. Eventually the
prohibition campaign was a national effort.
During this time, it was not uncommon to find one saloon for every 150 or 200
Americans, including those who did not drink. They were on every block! In
order to make even more money, saloonkeepers sometimes introduced vices
such as gambling and prostitution into their establishments. Many Americans
considered saloons offensive, noxious institutions.
The 18th Amendment prohibited the consumption and selling of alcohol.
Women believed that if the saloons were shut down, abusive husbands, drunks,
prostitution, and gambling would stop as well.
Prohibition leaders looked forward to a sober nation.
Bridging the Gap between the Rich and the Poor
The big question was: How do we close the gap between the rich and the poor?
There were the robber barrons and then the poor who worked for pennies an
hour. The gap was too huge and the progressives felt that something needed to
happen.
Since we live in a capitalist country, we cannot take the riches money and divide
it up equally amongst the poor because that would be unfair --- like communism!
That would also go against the term Laissez Faire which means that the
government will not interfere in business practices and follow a hands-off policy
to let the businessmen do their own thing.
As the rift between the wealthy and poor widened, numerous groups began to
support the idea of a national graduated income tax (a tax that would collect a
higher percentage from people who made more money) to help fund government
programs and create a better balance between the rich and poor. In 1909,
Congress passed the 16th Amendment, which gave the federal government the
power to collect taxes from the national population. The rich would pay more in
taxes and the poor would pay less. This did not completely heal the gap
between the rich and the poor but it did help a bit in lessening it since the rich
have to pay more.
Settlement Homes
Many European immigrants flooded the major cities for jobs. Tons lived in filthy
housing and had their children working alongside them in the factories. As poverty took
control of their lives, many crimes began to occur and life began to deteriorate.
Women saw the need and reached out to help through Settlement Homes. Here, they
offered childcare services for working parents who did not want their child to roam
around the streets for long hours, English-language classes, and healthcare services for
the families.