Sources Reflecting Social Issues

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Sources Reflecting Social Issues

• Consequences of Industrialization
• The Progressive Movement

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Source 1
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Source 2
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Source 3
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Source 4
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Source 5
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Source 6

• Everybody is talkin' these days about Tammany men
  growin rich on graft, but nobody thinks of
  drawin' the distinction between honest graft and
  dishonest graft. There's all the difference in
  the world between the two. Yes, manyof our men
  have grown rich in politics. I have myself. I've
  made a big fortune out of the game, and I'm
  gettin' richer every day, but I've not gone in
  for dishonest graft-blackmailin' gamblers,
  saloonkeepers, disorderly people, etc.-and
  neither has any of the men who have made big
  fortunes in politics.
• There's an honest graft, and I'm an example of
  how it works. I might sum up the whole thing by
  sayin' "I seen my opportunities and I took 'em.
• Just let me explain by examples. My party's in
  power in the city, and it's goin' to undertake a
  lot of public improvements. Well, I'm tipped off,
  say, that they're going to lay out a new park at
  a certain place.

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Source 6 (continued)

• I see my opportunity and I take it. I go to that
  place and I buy up all the land I can in the
  neighborhood. Then the board of this or what
  makes its plan public, and there is a rush to get
  my land, which nobody cared particular for
  before.
• Ain't it perfectly honest to charge a good price
  and make a profit in my investment and foresight?
  Of course, it is. Well, that's honest graft.

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Source 7
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Source 8
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Source 9
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Source 10

• Now, the typical American citizen is the
  business man. The typical business man is a bad
  citizen he is busy. If he is a "big business
  man" and very busy, he does not neglect, he is
  busy with politics, oh, very busy and very
  businesslike. I found him buying boodlers in St.
  Louis, defending grafters in Minneapolis,
  originating corruption in Pittsburgh, sharing
  with bosses in Philadelphia, deploring reform in
  Chicago, and beating good government with
  corruption funds in New York. He is a
  self-righteous fraud, this big business man. He
  is the chief source of corruption, and it were a
  boon if he would neglect politics. But he is not
  the business man that neglects politics that
  worthy is the good citizen, the typical business
  man. He too is busy, he is the one that has no
  use and therefore no time for politics. When his
  neglect has permitted bad government to go so far
  that he can be stirred to action, he is unhappy,
  and he looks around for a cure that shall be
  quick, so that he may hurry back to the shop.