MR. LIPMAN

1
MR. LIPMANS APUS POWERPOINT CHAPTER 28

• The Progressive Era
• 1901-1912

2
Keys to the Chapter

• What Progressives Want
• Supreme Court Speaks on Progressivism
• Muckrakers
• Teddy Roosevelt and the Three Cs
• Panic of 1907
• Tafts Presidency
• Dollar Diplomacy

3

• 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

4
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.

5
(No Transcript)
6
What Progressives Wanted

• 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

7

• 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

8

• 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

9

• 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.

10

• 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

11
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire(1911) 146
Die-----Brings calls for reforms
12
Young Womens Bodies Lie on the Street Below
13

• 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)
• Workers 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

14
Prohibition on Eve of the 18th Amendment, 1919
15

• Roosevelt decided to protect public interest
• Demanded Square Deal for public
• Three Cs
• control of corporations,
• consumer protection,
• conservation of natural resources
• He Believed That Government, and Not Big
  Business, Should Rule the Country

16
TRs 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

17

• Roosevelts 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

18

• Roosevelts good and bad trusts
• Realized cant 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 govt regulation

19
Good vs. Bad Trusts
20

• 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 Roosevelts order, greatly
  strengthening his reputation as trust buster

21
But in truth Taft busted more trusts
22

• 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

23

• 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

24

• 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

25

• 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.

26

• 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 Tafts nomination through

27
Roosevelt Hands My Policies Off to Taft
28
The Election of 1908 Taft vs. Bryan
29
Assessing Roosevelts 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

30

• 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

31

• Tafts weaknesses
• Lacked Roosevelts 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

32

• Tafts plan for foreign policy replaced
  Roosevelts 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

33

• 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

34
The United States in the Caribbean
35

• 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 governments strength against other
  trusts

36
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

37
Taft Makes a Mess
38

• 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

39
Roosevelt the Take-Back Giver