The Progressive Impulse
• Who were the Progressives?
– “A mov’t so broad gauged it almost defies
definition”
– a reform movement that sought new responses
to the complex social ills brought on by the
urban-industrial revolution
– generally sought an expansion of local, state,
and federal authority
The Progressive Impulse
• Roots of Progressivism:
– Populism
– Mugwumps
– Late 19th c. middle class reform movements
• settlement house; temperance; etc.
– Socialism & Social Critics
• The push-pull effect of socialism
• Voices of dissent: Henry Lloyd; Thorstein Veblen; Lincoln Steffens;
Jacob Riis
The Progressive Impulse
• Themes of Progressivism
–
–
–
–
Reform Democracy
Good Government is Possible
Regulation of Big Business
Efficiency and Scientific Management to Solve
Problems
– Protect Consumers
Democratic Reforms
• Direct primary
• Recall, initiative, referendum
• Corrupt-practices acts
• Direct election of senators:
• Nevada (1899) is the first
• 17th Amendment
• Australian ballot
– All states employ this by 1910
Robert La Follette
Good Government
• Municipal Reforms
– Target city bosses and their alliances with local businesses
(e.g., trolley lines and utility companies)
– Progressive mayors lead charge
– Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones (Toledo): free kindergartens, night
schools, public playgrounds
– Tom L. Johnson (Cleveland) : Tax reform, 3-cent trolley fares, public
ownership of utilities
– “Gas and Water Socialism”
– By 1915, 2/3 of the nations cities own their waterworks; gas lines,
electric power plants, and urban transit soon follow.
– Commission System and City-Managers
– Galveston, 1901 – voters elect heads of departments, not just mayor
– Dayton, 1913 – expert manager hired by city council
Good Government (2)
• State Reform
– Reform Governors
• Charles Evans Hughes (NY)
• Hiram Johnson (CA)
• Robert La Follette (WI): “The Wisconsin Idea”
– Direct primary, tax reform, regulation of RR rates, etc.
– Temperance and Prohibition
– 2/3 of state adopt prohibition
– “drys” and “wets” are sharply divided
– Goals: social/moral improvement; attack on power base for
urban political machines
The Progressive Impulse
• Themes of Progressivism (con’t)
– Efficiency
• Frederick Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management
(1911)
• Commission System in gov’t
– Galveston 1901
• City Manager system
• Budget and fiscal management
Regulation of Biz
• Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890): more symbolic
than effective
• Four options for dealing with concentrated
economic power:
– Extremes: laissez-faire and socialism
– Middle ground: trust-busting to restore
competition or accept big businesses as the most
efficient, but regulate them.
Government Solutions
• Social evils greater than private charities can
handle; need to harness the power of state to
correct
• Labor Legislation
– Child Labor
• National Child Labor Committee (1904)
• Lewis Hine photos
– Women’s Labor
• Florence Kelley & the National Consumer’s League
Government is the Solution or
Problem?
• Supreme Court and Labor
• Lochner v. New York (1905)
• Muller v. Oregon (1908)
• Protecting Workers
• Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire (1911)
• workman’s compensation laws and accident insurance
The Progressive Impulse
• Themes of Progressivism (con’t)
– Social Justice Con’t
• Prohibition
– WCTU (1874)
– ASL (1893)
» first modern single issue pressure group
» 1913 endorses a prohibition amendment
» by 1919, 3/4 of the nation’s population resides in “dry”
country
Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
Triangle Co. Building
Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
Fighting the Fire
Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
Jumping to their death...
Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
…or perishing in the blaze
Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
…or perishing in the blaze
Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
Identifying the dead at Pier Morgue
Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
Public outcry over unsafe
conditions at the factory
TR and the Square Deal
• TR as President
– Youngest ever @ 42 years old
– Promotes “the strenuous life” – mountain
climbing, hunting, boxing, football, tennis, etc.
– View of presidency: activist.
• President should set the legislative agenda, not just
lead the executive departments
• “Bully Pulpit”
TR and the Square Deal
• The Square Deal for Labor
– TR abandons traditional presidential support for
business over labor
• Hayes and the Great Strike (1877); Cleveland and the Pullman
Strike (1894)
– 1902 Anthracite Coal Strike
• TR calls for mediation and a “square deal” for both
• Threatens to send in troops to operate mines if no agreement
reached.
• Miners get a 10% pay increase and a 9 hour day, but no UMW
recognition.
TR and the Square Deal
• Trust Busting
– TRs philosophy: “good v. bad trusts”
– Creation of the Bureau of Corporations in 1903 – a
regulatory and investigative agency
– Begins enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
• Northern Securities Company (RR trust) broken up in 1904
• Standard Oil Trust broken
• beef trust, sugar trust, harvester trust all follow
Myth v. Reality
Trust buster?
Trust tamer?
Break up of Northern Securities
Co.
Leads to Gentleman’s Agreement
between Morgan and TR
Wall Street leaders will meet with
BOC before making mergers
1907 BOC agrees to allow
Morgan’s US Steel to
purchase Tennessee Coal as a
way of staving off the
“Roosevelt Panic”
TR and the Square Deal
• Railroad Regulation
– Congress strengthens the ICC
• Elkins Act (1903) – abolishes secret rebates
• Hepburn Act (1906) – ICC now sets maximum freight rates;
extends to sleeping cars, gas pipelines, etc.
• Consumer Protection
– The Jungle (1906) by Upton Sinclair
– Meat Inspection Act (1906) – inspections
Consumer Protection (2)
• Patent medicines =
advertised drugs whose
ingredients were often
unknown and whose
effectiveness was untested
• Pure Food and Drug Act
(1906) – forbids sale of
mislabeled or adulterated
foods and drugs
Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, a popular
teething remedy contained a combination of
alcohol and 65g of morphine per ounce.
TR: Conservation
• Conservation
– TR uses the Forest Preserve Act of 1891 to set aside
125 million acres of public land
– 1902 Newlands Reclamation Act: $ used from sale of
public lands to fund irrigation in the western states (that
is, to reclaim arid land)
– 1908 White House conference on conservation
• Gifford Pinchot (US Forest Service Director)
named as heard of National Conservation
Commission
– Conservationism (Pinchot, TR)
v. Preservationism (John Muir)
TR and the Square Deal
• Conservation
– Hetch-Hetchy controversy:
• City of San Francisco plan to construct a dam
flooding the Hetch-Hetchy Valley in the Sierra
Nevadas
End of the TR Presidency
• Panic of 1907 – “The Roosevelt Panic”
• Aldrich-Vreeland Act 1908 – response to hard
times; allows banks to issue emergency currency
during a contraction (inflationary)
• TRs Legacy:
–
–
–
–
The modern activist presidency
Bully Pulpit
Middle road b/w laissez faire and socialism
US emerges as major force in world affairs
William Howard Taft
• Election of 1908
– Taft is the hand-chosen successor of TR
– Defeats William J. Bryan and Eugene Debs
easily
– Never escapes TRs “shadow”
William Howard Taft
• Taft the Trustbuster
– A more vigorous anti-trust prosecutor than TR
• TR: 44 anti-trust suits in 7 ½ years
• WHT: 90 anti-trust suits in 4 year
– Key anti-trust activities
• 1911: Standard Oil Trust dissolved
• 1911: Taft goes after the United Steel Corporation
– infuriates TR, who had given his imprimatur to JP
Morgan's merger with Tennessee Coal & Iron -- one of the
merger's that prompted the suit
– Beginning of TR-Taft rift
– Mann-Elkins Act (1910) – Gives ICC oversight of
telephone, telegraph, and cable companies
William Howard Taft
• The Split in the GOP: Taft Alienates the
Progressives
– Payne Aldrich Tariff
• After running on tariff reduction, Taft signs a the PayneAldrich Tariff, which actually raises most tariff rates
• Taft defends the Bill, calling it the “best…ever seen”
– Pinchot-Ballinger Controversy
• Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger opens public lands to
private interests; criticized by Gifford Pinchot
• Taft dismisses Pinchot
– Joe Cannon
• Taft refuses to aid Progressives in their attempts to curb the
powers of the dictatorial Speaker of the House
– Midterm Elections
• Taft supports Conservative candidates and the split GOP loses
big…prompts creation of the National Progressive Republican
League to challenge for the GOP nomination in 1912.
The Election of 1912
• The Rise of the Socialists
– Socialist Party of America (1897)
• Calls for more radical reforms than Progressives:
– Public ownership of RRs, utilities, and major industries such as
coal, steel, and oil.
• Eugene V. Debs
– 5 time presidential candidate from 1900-1920
– Head of the American Railroad Workers Union
– Jailed more than once!
– Relationship with Progressives
• Work together on issues such as minimum wage, 8-hr. day,
pensions for employees
• Generally distance themselves from SPA policies
– Peak of power is 1912: Debs wins almost 1 million
votes.
Woodrow Wilson
• Assaults the “Triple Wall of Privilege”
– Tariffs
– Banking
– Trusts
Triple Wall: The Tariff
• Underwood Tariff
– Reduces tariffs and imposes a 1% income tax
– WW uses publicity to keep lobbyists in check
Triple Wall: The Banking System
• Federal Reserve Act of 1913
– Pujo Committee Investigation of banking
practices stirred call for reform
– Louis Brandeis’ Other People’s Money
– Federal Reserve System:
• A decentralized bank
• 12 district banks
• US controls through the Federal Reserve Board
The Federal Reserve System (2)
• Brings elasticity to the money system.
• Federal Reserve can release more money to banks
during downturns to bring about inflation:
– Lower interest rates (what the Fed charges member
banks to borrow money) make more money available
for loans, and stimulates the economy.
• Federal Reserve can contract money by raising
interest rates when there is too much inflation.
Triple Wall: The Trusts
• Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1913)
– Expanded the Sherman Anti-Trust Act;
– Companies cannot buy each other’s stock, if it creates a
monopoly (holding companies)
– Company officers can be prosecuted.
– Exempts labor: “The Magna Carta of labor.”
• Federal Trade Commission (1914)
– Watchdog agency; “turns a searchlight” on business
Other Wilson reforms
• Labor
– Seaman’s Act – conditions in merchant marine
– Workingmen’s Compensation Act – for fed employees
– Keating-Owen Act – child labor
• Farming
– Federal Farm Loan Act (1916)
– Warehouse Act (1916) – fed loans with crops as collateral
– Highways Act (1916)
• Race
– Brandeis to Supreme Court
– Opposes Federal Anti-Lynching Laws
– RE-segregates the US Govt
Progressive Presidents Comparison
TR
Domestic Square Deal
Policy
New
Nationalism
Foreign
Big Stick
Policy
TAFT
WILSON
New
Freedom
Dollar
Diplomacy
Moral
Diplomacy