Chapter Ten: Progressivism in Texas
Progressive Era (1901-1920s)
Who?
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Rising middle class of urban professionals
Agrarians
Social reformers
What?
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Good government
End corrupt politics
Improve rural life
Curtail the influence of large corporations
"Purify" society
Reform: prison, education, welfare, suffrage
How?
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2.
Efficient bureaucracy
Public education
Texas progressivism differed from previous reform movements
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Unlike Radical Reconstruction it was an indigenous movement.
Unlike Populism, it operated within the Democrat party.
In era where suffrage was being restricted.
All progressives considered recent immigrants and uneducated Americans as a threat to the middle class.
"Consequently, they saw no clash between social control and social reform."
Southern and Texas Progressivism
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Agreed with national progressives in the need for social control
Differed from national progressives in aiming for a democratic society for whites only
Texas progressives were tied to older agrarian solutions
"Within these self-imposed limitations, Texas progressivism succeeded"
"Texas progressivism carried an inherent anti-eastern bias . . . ."
Joseph Sayers (1899-1903) and S. W. T. Lanham (1903-1907)
Ex-governor James Hogg introduced reform platform that failed in the 1900 legislative session
Progressive coalition
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Hogg supporters
Former populists
Former alliancemen
Commercial clubs of businessmen
Prohibitionists
Women's clubs
State Federation of Labor
Texas progressive goals
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Electoral reforms
Reforms to benefit labor unions
Tax reforms
Regulation of insurance and banking
Antitrust actions
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Chapter Ten: Progressivism in Texas
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Electoral reforms
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2.
Poll tax
Terrell Election Law (1905)
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b.
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f.
g.
Primary elections
Secret ballots
Established deadlines for the payment of poll tax
Scheduled July primaries
Required statements of campaign expenses
Regularized voting qualifications
Established party governance procedures
Impact of electoral reforms
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2.
Disenfranchised most black voters
Disenfranchised many poor whites
"Progressives were confident that eliminating such 'unsavory' elements from politics would go far to clean up
he system."
Pro-Labor Legislation
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Exempted from antitrust legislation
Limited work hours for trainmen
Improved safety for railroad workers
Outlawed the blacklist
Outlawed company script and mandatory trading at company
Regulated child labor
stores
Tax Legislation
1.
2.
3.
Raised taxes on intangible assets of corporations
Taxed gross receipts of railroads and insurance corporations
Enacted franchise taxes
The legislature created a commission of insurance and banking.
A constitutional amendment allowed the chartering of state banks.
Antitrust actions
Restoring competition would 1) attract new industries and 2) create a favorable business climate for
local investors.
The most famous antitrust suit was the Waters-Pierce case.
Baileyism, Joseph Weldon Bailey, Henry Clay Pierce, 1897,
Standard Oil trust of New Jersey
Bailey opposed prohibition, women's suffrage, and Woodrow
Wilson
Chapter Ten: Progressivism in Texas
Election of 1906: Thomas M. Campbell -supported by Hogg. "Nevertheless, Campbell and he Thirtieth
Legislature formed the most reform-minded government in Texas history."
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Anti-railroad amendments
Anti-nepotism law
Strengthened anti-trust legislation
Tax reform doubled the value of assets
Created tax board
Inheritance tax
Higher franchise tax on liquor dealers
Robertson Insurance Law of 1907 (repealed 1963)
Bank Deposit Guaranty Act (repealed 1927)
Expansion of the Galveston Plan of city government
Department of Agriculture
State library and historical commission
Reformed prisons
Reformed public schools
Strengthened antitrust measures
Extended eight-hour day to telegraph operators
Created Bureau of Labor Statistics
Election of 1910 - Oscar Branch Colquitt (1911-15)
Conservative: "wets," pro-German
Progressive legislation
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Regulation of child labor
Establishment of factory safety standards
Regualtion of hours of women workers
First state workmens compensation legislation
Penal reforms
Tuberculosis hospital
Training school for delinquent children
Allowed counties to establish poor farms
Rio Grande border problems
The disruptions caused by the Mexican Revolution of 1910 escalated tensions in South Texas.
Mexican revolutionaries 1) bought arms in Texas, 2) recruited soldiers, 3) launched guerrilla raids
Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson responded cautiously. Colquitt order the Texas
Rangers to the Rio Grande and criticized Wilson, further alienating himself from Texas progressives.
Financial problems: Texas confronted a tax base that was too low.
Educational reforms
Progressives wanted better schools to serve their children and to attract new industry.
Despite Texas's relative poverty, between 1890 and 1920 illiteracy dropped to 8.3 percent, the lowest in the
South.
Reformers wanted standardization in books, courses, requirements, and administration.
Two types of schools
Common schools: rural, administered by trustees, boundaries could change year-by-year. Most
had one building, often one-room schools with a single teacher.
Independent school districts: towns, school boards
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Chapter Ten: Progressivism in Texas
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School consolidation
Free textbooks (1907)
Compulsory school attendance (1915); by 1929 Texas school terms lengthiest in the South.
Professional administration of the school system: Annie Webb Blanton, State Department of Education,
State Board of Education
Teacher qualifications upgraded. Normal schools established at Denton, San Marcos, Alpine, Commerce,
and Nacogdoches.
Low teacher pay; blacks earned less than whites, common school teachers earned less than those who
taught in independent districts
Possibly, the major impact of progressivism on education was not an improved teaching staff, but rather a
change in philosophy. Progressive educators believed the classroom should be an environment to stimulate
individual learning that would be relevant to the child's life. "Progressive reformers maintained that schools
had a responsibility for the improvement of the social order." "Progressives accepted as axiomatic the
Jeffersonian proposition that mass education produced a more responsible citizenry."
Prison reform in Campbell administration (1907-11): 1) end of contract-lease system, 2) established tencent-per-day pay scale, 3) eliminated striped uniforms, 4) mandated segregation of prisoners, 5) improved
prison sanitation, and 6) improved medical service. Whipping continued.
Prison reform in Coquitt administration (1911-15): 1) state-run farms, 2) indeterminate sentences, 3)
suspended sentences, 4) parole system, 5) concurrent sentences, 6) electric chair, and 7) better care for
juvenile offenders.
Social Welfare: poor the responsibility of local governments, State Medical Board, State Department of
Health, State Board of Control
Forest conservation: W. Goodrich Jones, Texas Forestry Association, Goals: selective cutting, reforestation,
and Department of Forestry, Eric O. Siecke, failed to save pine forests of East Texas
Good Roads Movement: Texas Good Roads Association (1911), national highway network, Texas Highway
Department, lack of cooperation between counties and perceived corruption held back the creation of a state
highway system