The Progressive Impulse

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The Progressive Impulse

• Who were the Progressives?
• A movt 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

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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

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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

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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
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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

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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

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The Progressive Impulse

• Themes of Progressivism (cont)
• Efficiency
• Frederick Taylors Principles of Scientific
  Management (1911)
• Commission System in govt
• Galveston 1901
• City Manager system
• Budget and fiscal management

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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.

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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
• Womens Labor
• Florence Kelley the National Consumers League

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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)
• workmans compensation laws and accident
  insurance

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The Progressive Impulse

• Themes of Progressivism (cont)
• Social Justice Cont
• Prohibition
• WCTU (1874)
• ASL (1893)
• first modern single issue pressure group
• 1913 endorses a prohibition amendment
• by 1919, 3/4 of the nations population resides
  in dry country

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Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
Triangle Co. Building
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Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
Fighting the Fire
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Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
Jumping to their death...
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Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
or perishing in the blaze
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Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
or perishing in the blaze
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Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
Identifying the dead at Pier Morgue
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Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
Public outcry over unsafe conditions at the
factory
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TR and the Square Deal

• TR as President
• Youngest ever _at_ 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

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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.

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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

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• Myth v. Reality
• Trust buster? Trust tamer?

Break up of Northern Securities Co. Leads to
Gentlemans Agreement between Morgan and TR Wall
Street leaders will meet with BOC before making
mergers 1907 BOC agrees to allow Morgans US
Steel to purchase Tennessee Coal as a way of
staving off the Roosevelt Panic
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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

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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

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• Mrs. Winslows Soothing Syrup, a popular
  teething remedy contained a combination of
  alcohol and 65g of morphine per ounce.

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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

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William Howard Taft

• The Split in the GOP Taft Alienates the
  Progressives
• Payne Aldrich Tariff
• After running on tariff reduction, Taft signs a
  the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, which actually raises
  most tariff rates
• Taft defends the Bill, calling it the bestever
  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 bigprompts creation of the
  National Progressive Republican League to
  challenge for the GOP nomination in 1912.

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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.

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Woodrow Wilson

• Assaults the Triple Wall of Privilege
• Tariffs
• Banking
• Trusts

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Triple Wall The Tariff

• Underwood Tariff
• Reduces tariffs and imposes a 1 income tax
• WW uses publicity to keep lobbyists in check

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Triple Wall The Banking System

• Federal Reserve Act of 1913
• Pujo Committee Investigation of banking practices
  stirred call for reform
• Louis Brandeis Other Peoples Money
• Federal Reserve System
• A decentralized bank
• 12 district banks
• US controls through the Federal Reserve Board

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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.

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Triple Wall The Trusts

• Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1913)
• Expanded the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
• Companies cannot buy each others 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

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Other Wilson reforms

• Labor
• Seamans Act conditions in merchant marine
• Workingmens 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

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Progressive Presidents Comparison
TR TAFT WILSON
Domestic Policy Square Deal New Nationalism New Freedom
Foreign Policy Big Stick Dollar Diplomacy Moral Diplomacy