Study Guide for Wilsonian Progressivism Reading Assignment PREFACE: Woodrow Wilson did not win the Election of 1912; the Republicans lost it. The GOP was so determined to ignore public opinion, choosing the weak incumbent William Howard Taft over the wildly-popular Theodore Roosevelt, that they forced TR to run on the Progressive Party (ie the “Bull Moose” Party), an act that accomplished nothing more than splitting the conservative vote and handing the election to the Democrats. Need further proof? Wilson won 6,286,214 popular votes; TR 4,126,020; and Taft 3,484,922; if the GOP had not split their vote between Taft and TR they would have defeated Wilson handily (Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs received 897,011 votes . . . scary). In any event, the Election of 1912 revealed three things: first, TR’s Bull Moose campaign was a political disaster, an exercise in TR’s ego that doomed the Progressive Party forever. Secondly, a significant section of America was dissatisfied to the point of extremism, as evidenced by Debs’ showing at the polls. And third, by any interpretation of the election’s result, Americans clearly wanted reform, and they chose Woodrow Wilson and his New Freedom agenda as the machinery of that reform. Socialism in America 1. Know the Socialist demographic (where were they strongest, who supported them, where was their greatest voting strength?) 2. Big Bill Haywood and The International Workers of the World (the Wobblies) 3. Haywood’s agenda and methods 4. Popular reaction to the Effect of the 1912 Lowell Strike, what effect did this have on unions in general? 5. Reason for decline of socialist popularity 6. Effects on movement as a result of socialist and IWW policy regarding US participation in WWI 7. Reason for 1919 split into hostile camps 8. Factors that caused socialism to lose to the American Dream. The Birth Control Movement 1. 2. 3. 4. Margaret Sanger and her crusade Sanger and eugenics Sanger’s experiences as an advocate of contraception Overall results of Sanger’s reform activities Progressive Education 1. John Dewey 2. Dewey’s philosophy WOODROW WILSON New Freedom Legislation 1. The 1913 Underwood-Simmons Tariff 2. The Graduated Income Tax 3. The 1913 Federal Reserve Act a. The Federal Reserve System b. Federal Reserve Notes c. Controlling the money supply d. Interest rates e. Shortcomings and successes 4. The 1914 Federal Trade Commission Act a. Effect of TR’s New nationalism on Wilson’s thinking b. Make up c. Duties d. Overall effectiveness Retreat and Renewal 1. Wilson and: a. Women’s Suffrage b. Social legislation c. Big Business d. Race relations 2. The midterm elections of 1914 3. Significance of Louis Brandeis 4. Renewal of Progressive Reform: a. The Federal Farm Loan Act b. The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act (court decision?) c. The Adamson Act (court decision?) Twilight of Reform 1. Source of America’s attention 2. Criticisms of Progressivism 3. Wilson’s polices as precedent