MR. LIPMAN’S APUS
POWERPOINT CHAPTER 28
The Progressive Era
1901-1912
Keys to the Chapter
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What Progressive’s Want
Supreme Court Speaks on Progressivism
Muckrakers
Teddy Roosevelt and the Three C’s
Panic of 1907
Taft’s Presidency
Dollar Diplomacy
• Where did these Progressive critics come from?
– Socialists
• Many were European immigrants
– Social gospel movement
• Used religion to demand better for urban poor
– Feminists
• Demanded suffrage along with other reforms
• Led by Jane Addams (Chicago) who worked to
improve conditions for urban poor
T.R. Referred to them as Muckrakers
• Most focused on big business and need for
government to right the wrongs of society:
– Jacob Riis (“How the Other Half Lives”)
– Lincoln Steffens (“Shame of the cities”)
– Ida M. Tarbell (“Mother of Trusts-Standard Oil)
– Upton Sinclair (“The Jungle”- Meat Companies)
They sought social change but primarily
highlighted the bad without clear ideas to fix it.
What Progressives Wanted
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End to Urban Slums
End to Machine Politics
Direct Election of Senators
Regulation of Trusts
Suffrage for Women
A Federal Income Tax
Child Labor Laws / Limit on Working Hours
Improve Life of Poor & stop Socialism
• Progressivism was a national movement
– Were in both major parties
• Wanted to regain power of the people that had been
given up to powerful “interests”
– Direct primaries (instead of rule by party bosses)
– Initiative so that voters could propose legislation,
bypassing corrupt legislators
– Referendum put laws on ballot to allow voters
themselves to pass (or not) laws,
– Recall elections to remove corrupt elected officials
• Progressive reforms at state level - Wisconsin
– Governor Robert M. La Follette (“Fighting Bob”)
– Take power from corps and give it back to people
– Came up with way to regulate public utilities
– Worked with experts from faculty at university
– New York under governor Charles Evans Hughes
• Investigated gas, insurance, and coal industries
to end corruption
Issues for women: factory reform; temperance;
suffrage; child labor laws
• Muller v. Oregon (1908)
– Supreme Court accepts special laws
protecting women and children in the
workplace
– Employers previously had had total control
over the workplace
– Right to Contract overruled because of need
to “procreate the race”.
• Lochner v. New York
(1905)
- overturned a N. Y. law
establishing a 10-hour
workday for bakers
– No special interest to
protect workers
present to void private
party contract rights
– In 1917 Court will
finally change its views
Triangle
Shirtwaist
Fire
(1911)
146 Die
----Brings calls
for reforms
Young Women’s Bodies Lie on the Street Below
• Gradual change from unregulated capitalism
to belief that employers and government had
responsibility to workers and society
– Many states passed tougher laws regulating
sweatshops (after the Triangle fire)
– Worker’s compensations laws gave injured
workers insurance for lost income
– States begin to limit alcohol sales but cities will
remain “wet” due to large immigrant populations
Prohibition on Eve of the 18th Amendment, 1919
• Roosevelt decided to protect “public interest”
– Demanded “Square Deal” for public
– Three C’s:
– control of corporations,
– consumer protection,
– conservation of natural resources
He Believed That Government, and Not Big
Business, Should Rule the Country
TR’s Square Deal for Labor
• 1902 coal strike in Pennsylvania
–Workers exploited in dangerous mines
–Workers demanded 20% increase in
pay and working day of 9 hour
–Mine owners refused arbitration or
negotiation
• Roosevelt’s actions
–Realizes importance of coal for fuel
–Sided with workers, in part because of
the arrogance of the mine owners
–Threatened to seize and operate mines
with federal troops
• First time government had
threatened owners, instead of
workers, with violence
• Roosevelt’s good and bad trusts
–Realized can’t eliminate all trusts
–Good trusts had a public conscience;
bad trusts greedy for $ and power
–Only against bad trusts
–Use threat of breakup to force
corporations to accept gov’t regulation
Good
vs.
Bad
Trusts
• Northern Securities Case (1904)
– Railroad company organized by JP Morgan
to monopolize railroads in Northwest
– 1902 - Roosevelt orders breakup of
Northern Securities & they sue
– 1904 - Northern Securities decision
• Supreme Court upheld Roosevelt’s order,
greatly strengthening his reputation as
trust buster
But in
truth Taft
“busted”
more
trusts
• Meat Inspection Act (1906) – Brought about because
of “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair
– Meat shipped over state lines subject to federal
inspection throughout entire process
– Used by large packing houses to drive smaller
competitors out of business
– Large packing houses got US approval for their
meat - increase shipments to Europe
• Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
– Prevented adulteration and mislabeling
• Roosevelt energized conservation movement
at federal level
– Lover of outdoors - hunter, naturalist, rancher
– Using up natural resources appalled him
– Set aside 125 million acres of forests, 3 times what
his predecessors had done
– Set aside acres of coal and water resources
• Roosevelt easily re-elected in 1904
– Called more strongly for Progressive measures
• Taxing income, protecting income, regulating corporations
– Announced he would not run for a 3rd term in 1908 during
1904 election and he would later regret the decision
• 1907 - short panic hit Wall Street
– Included runs on banks, suicides, and criminal
proceedings against speculators
– Roosevelt blamed by business leaders
• Panic of 1907 led to currency reforms
– Aldrich-Vreeland Act (1908)
• Authorized national banks to issue
currency backed by collateral
• Eventually will lead to Federal Reserve
Act (1913) and understanding that
Government must be in charge of the
money supply but that it must be kept
separate from fiscal policy.
• Roosevelt decides not to run in 1908
Picks his secretary of war William Howard Taft
to be his successor
• used his power and control of the Republican party to
push Taft’s nomination through
Roosevelt
Hands
“My
Policies”
Off to Taft
The Election of 1908: Taft vs. Bryan
Assessing Roosevelt’s Presidency
• He usually chose the middle road
– Acts to soften the worst abuses of capitalism, but
effectively preserved capitalism and allowed the
system to flourish
– Able to head off move towards socialism
– Most important and lasting contribution preservation of natural resources - he chose the
middle road between preservationists and those
who wanted to rape the land of all its resources
– T.R. enlarged the power and prestige of the
presidential office
• used the power of publicity (the “bully pulpit”)
to get his way
– Helped guide progressive movement and later
liberal reforms
• Square Deal was forerunner of the later New
Deal from FDR
– Opened Americans’ eyes to the fact that they
shared the world with other countries
• As a great power, the USA had responsibilities
and ambitions that could not be escaped
• Taft’s weaknesses:
– Lacked Roosevelt’s strong political leadership skills
or his love of a good fight
• Became passive when dealing with Congress
• Not a good judge of public opinion and
frequently misspoke in public
• Too conservative to make Progressives in his
party happy
• Taft’s plan for foreign policy replaced Roosevelt’s “big
stick” policy with “dollar diplomacy”
–US investors would pour money into
areas of strategic concern for the US especially the Far East and Latin
America around the Panama Canal
–US investors thereby block out rival
investors from foreign countries while
bringing profit to themselves and USA
• Dollar diplomacy in Latin America
– US refused to allow European investment in
Latin America (cite Monroe Doctrine)
– Taft urged US investors to pump money into
Latin America to keep out foreign funds
– To protect investments US forces frequently
used to put down protests and revolutions
• For example, in 1912 a force of 2,500 US
marines landed in Nicaragua to put down
a revolution, and stayed 13 years
The United States in the Caribbean
• 1911 - Supreme Court ordered breakup
of Standard Oil Company because held to
violate the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act
– Court handed down its “rule of reason”
which held that only combinations that
“unreasonably” restrained trade were
illegal; this rule greatly weakened the
government’s strength against other trusts
Taft Splits the Republican Party
• Progressive wing wanted to lower protective
tariff (which they called the “Mother of
Trusts” because of it protected big business)
• Taft says okay but ends up actually raising
tariff and loses support of progressives
• Also splits the party on issue of Conservation
Taft Makes a Mess
• February 1912 - Roosevelt, angry with Taft for
apparent rejection of Progressivism (“my
policies”), decided to fight for Republican
nomination
– He reasoned that the third-term tradition applied
to 3 consecutive elective terms
– “My hat is in the ring!”
AT THE CONVENTION HE NARROWLY LOSES AND
DECIDES TO RUN ON THIRD PARTY TICKET
Roosevelt the Take-Back Giver