Brenda L. Broussard
20 th
Century US History
Prof. Buzzanco
Feb. 1, 2007
THE TRIUMPH OF CONSERVATISM: A REINTERPRETATION OF AMERICAN
HISTORY, 1900 TO 1916. By Gabriel Kolko, (The Free Press: New York, 1963).
The Triumph of Conservatism is an attempt to revise the political and economic interpretations of the Progressive Era. Gabriel Kolko contends that historians have erroneously labeled the era as “progressive” and he sets out to prove that it was instead an
“era of conservatism” (2). Kolko feels that the canon has long mistakenly portrayed the era as one in which the quest for centralization, trust formation, and monopoly creation typified business and the efforts of progressive reformers altered both domestic and foreign federal policy. Instead, Kolko sets out to prove that big business interests controlled politics and swayed domestic and foreign policy to ensure the greatest profit to themselves. He refers to this as “political capitalism.”
Kolko takes a trilateral approach to revising history. First he focuses on business, primarily the rustbelt, oil, automobile, telephone, and meat-packing industries. Kolko uses specific examples within these industries to show that centralization was not a goal because owners realized that decentralization was more cost effective and thus more profitable. It was in fact their inability to control competition and stabilize the economy that prompted big business to push for seemingly progressive economic reforms. The author continues this theory of anti-centralization by assuring the reader that competition flourished in all industries, “the consolidation of the economy into a few hands was made impossible by the shifting locations of markets and resources- changes that meant few companies were sufficiently well managed to hold on to their share of the market and prevent new entries” (54). While the few statistics that Kolko uses to demonstrate this

Broussard 2 support his theory, the reader cannot help but feel that there is data missing. Questions arise that go unanswered; if there was not a move towards monopoly by big business, then why all of the public and political clamor to end it? Also, if big business had so much control over Congress, again how could so much political fuss over issues as trusts and monopolies occur? The adage, “where there is smoke, there is fire” lingers in the back of the reader’s mind. Kolko’s argument does at the very least convince the reader that maybe more was made of these issue than was necessary. I’m not fully convinced by
Kolko’s argument that there was no threat of absolute consolidation in certain industries.
Kolko directs his second line of attack at the presidents of the Progressive Era. By relying heavily on personal correspondences between the presidents and big business representatives, Kolko attempts to display the immense influence and often outright control over the executives. He devotes four chapters of ten to Theodore Roosevelt
(Roosevelt is frequent target of Kolko’s attacks throughout the entire book), two to the
Taft administration and ends with Wilson. He tries to convince the reader that they were not progressives and thus their administrative policies continued the era of conservatism; thus the “triumph of conservatism.” This is not new scholarship, even in 1963, and so while Kolko nicely explains certain aspects of the banking reforms, creation of the Food and Drug Administration, etc., his argument is far from being revisionist. Kolko spends too much effort trying to convince the reader that the presidents had no real control and became either yes-men to the capitalists, or merely sat back and let policy happen despite their real concerns. He also treats Roosevelt with a disdain that leads one to believe he suffered some direct affront from the President. Even, if the reader considers the timeframe that this book was written, and understands that the 1960s was a time of

Broussard 3 awakening for political activism and mistrust of government was beginning to take hold, the vehemence is still misplaced and distracts from the author’s intended thesis.
Another weakness is the absence of Progressives. Granted, Kolko is trying to prove that the beginning of the twentieth century was a conservative era, but the
Progressive Party was real and had followers, in and out of the federal political arena. He could have strengthened his argument with more comparative analysis between what
Progressives were fighting for and what capitalists were achieving. This omission leads one to believe that maybe the Progressives played a larger role in events than Kolko wants to give them credit for, is not at the federal, then maybe at the state levels. Kolko’s conclusion grants most of the credit for reform to Congress, stating that the Presidents were far to “preoccupied with patronage” to have accomplished anything without the persistent “prodding of Congress”. He touches on political and class theory and briefly applies this to the Progressive Era, but spends more time on applying it to the current
American situation.
Finally, the third attack and the clearest contention of Kolko’s book is his unfavorable attitude towards previous historians and his acerbic attacks and opinions of their gross negligence and incompetence in analyzing and interpreting the Progressive
Era. His directs his attacks towards historians in general and the canon works of the
Progressive Era, rather than at anyone in particular. While he attempts to support his attacks with evidence, the caustic remarks divert the reader from the relevance of the point Kolko is making and weakens his already stretched too thin arguments. At most,
Kolko gets the reader to rethink past interpretations, but most likely his revisionist attempts won’t win over too many true converts. In short, a less insulting and more

Broussard 4 objective presentation of the facts would have contributed to a more acceptable and palatable argument.