American Progressive Political
and Economical Changes
1890-1914
Mixed-Market Economy
Child Labor
• These laws were often paired with
compulsory education laws which
were designed to keep children in
school and out of the paid labor
market until a specified age (usually
12, 14, or 16 years.)
16th Amendment 1913
• The Congress shall have power to lay and collect
taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived,
without apportionment among the several states,
and without regard to any census or enumeration.
• Progressives and Republicans were divided on the
issue (wealthy did not like)
• President Roosevelt did not get it passed
• 1912 Democrats won both houses and Presidency
with President Taft getting the amendment passed
by 1913
17th Amendment 1913
• The direct election of Senators by the popular
vote in each state.
• Vacancies can be filled by governor appointments
until a special election can fill the gap until the
regular General Election in the fall
• Overrides Senators elected by state legislators
• Democrats did not like losing power of state
legislators
• Republicans chose to let the people vote in the
state for their Senators, not state governments!
Carrie A. Nation
• Kansas
• Radical Temperance
movement leader
• Promoted her anti-alcohol
ideas by attacking taverns
and bars with a hatchet
• “Bulldog running with Jesus”
• Helped 18th Amendment
Billy Sunday
• William Ashley "Billy" Sunday was an
American athlete who, after being a
popular outfielder in baseball's
National League during the 1880s,
became the most celebrated and
influential American Evangelist
• He also made a great deal of money
and was welcomed into the homes of
the wealthy and influential. Sunday
was a strong supporter of Prohibition.
18th Amendment 1920
• 1920-1933 Prohibition
• 18th Amendment: The production, transport
and sale of (though not the consumption or
private possession of) alcohol illegal.
• Volstead Act set down methods of enforcing
the Eighteenth Amendment, and defined
which "intoxicating liquors" were prohibited,
and which were excluded from prohibition
(e.g., for medical and religious purposes).
19th Amendment 1920
• Between 1878, when the amendment was
first introduced in Congress, and 1920, when it
was ratified.
• Wyoming was the first state to allow females
the right to vote (West was progressive too)
• All females 21 years and older could finally
vote!
Sherman Antitrust Act 1890
• The US Congress passed a law banning
monopolies and anti-competitive behaviors
• America needs competition for consumers to
have more freedom to purchase goods &
services
US v Knight & Co. 1895
• Sugar Trust Act
• The case that limited the government's power
to control monopolies.
• Manufacturing is not considered an area that
can be regulated by Congress pursuant to the
commerce clause.
• Refining—was a local activity not subject to
congressional regulation of interstate
commerce
Theodore Roosevelt 1901-1908
• Fought in Spanish-American War 1898
• Republican and followed progressive ideas
• William McKinley was assassinated and Theodore Roosevelt
became the youngest president at 43 years old
• Broaden power to protect Americans
• Strong foreign “Big Stick” policy
• Fought to stop monopolies; he filed 44 anti-trust suits using the
Sherman Anti-Trust Act 1890
• Justice for all
• Roosevelt Corollary (South America protected by US)
• Panama Canal
• 1912 Roosevelt will run for President again representing the
Progressive Party “Bull Moose Party” as he was disgusted with
Republicans. He would lose but pulled 88 elector votes for a
third party
Conservation
• Roosevelt fought to organize water projects to
transform dry wilderness areas into agricultural
areas
• Roosevelt used his authority as president in 1901
to protect wildlife and public lands by creating the
U.S. Forest Service and establishing 51 Federal Bird
Reservations, 4 National Game Preserves, 150
National Forests, 5 National Parks, and enabling
the1906 American Antiquities Act which he used to
proclaim 18 National Monuments. During his
presidency, Theodore Roosevelt protected
approximately 230,000,000 acres of public land.
Yellowstone National Park
• The first National Park in America created in
1872 before Roosevelt’s Presidency
Anthracite Coal Strike 1902
• American Coal Strike in Pennsylvania
• Anthracite “hard” coal had higher heat value
and less smoke
• Miners were on strike asking for higher wages,
shorter workdays and the recognition of their
union. The strike threatened to shut down the
winter fuel supply to all major cities (homes
and apartments were heated with anthracite
President Roosevelt
• President Theodore Roosevelt became involved
and set up a fact-finding commission that
suspended the strike.
• The strike never resumed, as the miners received
more pay for fewer hours; the owners got a
higher price for coal, and did not recognize
the trade union as a bargaining agent.
• It was the first labor episode in which the federal
government intervened as a neutral arbitrator.
Northern Securities v US 1904
• Quincy Railroad was the issue
• Two major railroads Great Northern Railway and J.P
Morgan’s Northern Pacific Railway wanted to buy it
• The Union Pacific and Southern Pacific also wanted
to buy the Burlington and Quincy Railroad
• The Court ruled 5 to 4 against the stockholders of
the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroad
companies, who had essentially formed
a monopoly, and to dissolve the Northern Securities
Company.
Elkins Act 1903
• Roosevelt’s “Square Deal”
• Amended the Interstate Commerce Act 1887
• Impose heavy fines on railroads that offered
rebates
• Petroleum and livestock industries demanded
rebates
• Very popular with Railroads
• Only a monetary fine and railroads were now
protected against the big industries
Hepburn Act 1906
• Gave power t set maximum railroad rates
• Stopped free passage to loyal customers
• Hepburn Act, the ICC's authority was
extended to cover bridges, terminals, ferries,
railroad sleeping cars, express companies
and oil pipelines.
• ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform
system of accounting, require standardized
reports, and inspect railroad accounts
Panic of 1907
• 1907 Bankers' Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis
• Limitations and laws on the railroads
depreciated the value of railroad securities
• Many state and local banks panicked and went
out of business
• Stock fell 50% from peak in 1906
• Panic occurred during recession
Panic of 1907 Wall Street
J.P. Morgan
• The panic might have
deepened if not for the
intervention of
financier J. P. Morgan,
who pledged large sums
of his own money, and
convinced other New
York bankers to do the
same, to shore up
the banking system.
Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad
Company 1907
• Stock dropped and the company collapsed
• J.P. Morgan held an emergency takeover by his
U.S. Steel Corporation which saved the
workers
• Anti-Monopoly President Roosevelt did not
like but accepted
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v
U.S. 1911
• Standard Oil Company of New Jersey had
bought up virtually all of the oil
refining companies in the United States
• The Supreme Court ruled: The Standard
Oil Company conspired to restrain the
trade and commerce in petroleum, and to
monopolize the commerce in petroleum,
in violation of the Sherman Act, and was
split into many smaller companies. Several
individuals, including John D. Rockefeller,
were fined.
1913 Federal Reserve Act “The Fed”
• Senator Nelson Aldrich “father-in-law” to
Rockefeller chaired a commission to investigate
and propose new solutions to banking problems
• Federal Reserve System: central banking system
• Oversee all banks in U.S
• Monetary policy/research economy
• Long-term interest rates and stable prices
• Check inflation keep small
William Howard Taft
• President from 1909-1913
• Republican
• Secretary of War for President Roosevelt and replaced
Roosevelt
• Poor Politician
• Battled Progressive and Conservatives
• Conservative Republicans did not like Roosevelt’s antimonopoly/big business attitude
• Roosevelt did not like how Taft did nothing to his Secretary
of Interior who fumbled Roosevelt’s conservation policies
(protection of lands out west) and Roosevelt left the
Republican Party and started the Bull-Moose Party in 1912
President Taft
Payne-Aldrich Tariff 1909
• House of Rep. Sereno Payne & Senator Nelson
Aldrich
• A bill to lower tariffs on certain goods entering
the U.S.
• Compromise bill which lowered some tariffs and
raised other tariffs
• Allowed free trade with the Philippines
• Angered Progressives; it increased the duty on
print paper
• Republicans and Progressives split!
Mann Act 1910
• Congressman James Mann
• Prohibit white slavery/prostitution
• Stop human interstate sex trafficking of females
and made it a federal crime
• Prostitution was Immoral
• Ambiguous language of immorality criminalized
forms of consensual sexual behaviors
• Amended in 1978 & 1986
American Tobacco v US 1911
• The Sherman Antitrust Act was created in 1890
• in 1907 the American Tobacco Company was
indicted in violation of it.
• n 1908 when the Department of Justice filed suit
against the company, sixty-five companies and
twenty-nine individuals were named in the suit.
• The Supreme Court ordered the company to
dissolve in 1911 on the same day that it ordered
the Standard Oil Trust to dissolve
Four Firms Created
• Four tobacco firms were created from
the American Tobacco Company
• American Tobacco Company
• R.J. Reynolds
• Liggett & Meyers
• Lorillard
• The monopoly became an oligopoly!
1912 Progressive “Fit as a Moose”
• Theodore Roosevelt did not like the way the
Republican party was shaping.
• He left the Republicans and started the Third
party Progressive Party called “Bull Moose
Party”
• Shot in his chest by fanatic but kept to his
words
• Lost but Bull Moose “third party” took 88
electoral votes from two main parties (Dem &
Rep)
Election of 1912
• Republicans favored William Howard Taft again
(8 electoral votes)
• Third Party Bull-Moose Party Theodore
Roosevelt (88 electoral votes)
• Third Party Socialist Party Eugene Debs
• Democrats Woodrow Wilson won (435
electoral votes)!
• Arizona and New Mexico voted (48 states)
• Main issue: Trusts (monopolies)
Woodrow Wilson 1913-1921
• Democrat (not Southern Democrat)
• Like Roosevelt before him, Woodrow Wilson
regarded himself as the personal representative of
the people. "No one but the President," he said,
"seems to be expected ... to look out for the
general interests of the country."
• He developed a program of progressive reform and
asserted international leadership in building a new
world order. In 1917 he proclaimed American
entrance into World War I a crusade to make the
world "safe for democracy."
President Wilson
New Freedom Program
• 1. Tariff Reform: This came through the passage of
the Underwood Tariff Act of 1913, which lowered tariffs for
the first time since the American Civil War and went against
the protectionist lobby.
• 2. Business Reform: This was established in 1914 through the
passage of the Federal Trade Act, which established
the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and halt unfair
and illegal business practices by issuing "cease and desist"
orders, and the Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914.
• 3. Banking Reform: This came in 1913, through the creation
of the Federal Reserve System, which set up a system to
oversee the banks. Loans money to commercial banks.
Clayton Antitrust Act 1914
• Enforcement: Set up enforcement for the Federal
Trade Commission to oversee unfair business
practices
• FTC notified of mergers
• Stopped “holding companies” Companies who just
hold stock of other companies are like trusts
• Exemptions: Clayton differed from Sherman Antitrust case because it allowed trusts of unions
(workers were not a commodity)
• Sports teams like the National Baseball League were
exempt