Progressive Era:

1
Progressive Era

• Its Politics and Culture

2
Origins of Progressivism

• What is Progressivism? __________________________
  ________________________________
• Two Kinds of Progressivism
• One that came American Populism of the late 19th
  century (rural and values based).
• Another that came from a movement of
  intellectuals that sought change through
  inclusion and education (urban and intellectual
  based).
• These two progressive movements sometimes
  overlapped
• Both movements driven by Protestant beliefs in
  justice and moral imperatives.

3
Types of Progressive Policy

• 1) Prohibition (banning of alcoholic beverages)
  was a subject of the Progressive movement
•         Those new found city dwellers once a
  part of rural society saw immigrant abuses of
  alcoholic beverages as a moral cancer, and used
  the Social Gospel as justification for
  Prohibition. (Anti-Saloon League and the Womans
  Temperance Union spearheaded crusades against
  alcohol)
•         City Progressive intellectuals backed
  Prohibition because alcoholic beverages made city
  bosses and political machines stronger.

4
The Machine and Alcohol

• ?Machines used alcohol as an instrument of
  leverage with immigrants, even though they
  exploited the immigrant they understood and
  catered to them culturally and personally.
• ?Not until 1920 does Prohibition takes effect
  with the Volstead Act and the 18th Amendment.

5
Wealth?

• 2) Uneven distribution of wealth at the end of
  the Gilded Age began to show antagonisms toward
  those who have apparently used competition to
  destroy competition thus, in the words of Walter
  Weyl, The New Democracy, As wealth accumulates,
  moreover, a cleavage of sentiment widens between
  the men who are getting rich and the men who
  richThe widening of this competitive field has
  widened the variation and has sharpened the
  contrast between success and failure, with
  resulting inequality and discontent.
• The current state of American competition was not
  considered democratic to him and the others at
  the New Republic.

6
Muckrakers

• Muckrakers, usually journalists, used their
  outlets to fight immoral behavior in city
  politics, economics, and in society as a whole.
• Lincoln Steffens criticized corruption in city
  politics, Charles Beards An Economic
  Interpretation of the Constitution, and Ida
  Tarbell criticized Standard Oil, novels by people
  like Upton Sinclair lampooned city life.

7
Immigration

• 3) Immigration illustrates the split in the
  Progressive movement.
• Some reformers were anti-immigrant and sided with
  American nativists.
• Some reformers, like Jane Addams, felt
  Americanizing immigrants was the best strategy.
• Either way together they both (pro and
  anti-immigration types) made up the Progressive
  Era philosophy.

8
Scientific Revolution

• 4) Scientific Revolution finds its way into
  society in two ways (early industrial revolution
  and 20th century automation)
• Scientific Management, or the study of industrial
  efficiency, guided people like Frederick Taylor
  to influence Henry Ford. (modern assembly line
  for autos.)
• Social Sciences influenced people, like John
  Dewey in Democracy and Education (1916), to apply
  pragmatic thinking to how democracy should be run
  in society and in education. (Also an important
  person in the formation of the New Republic)

9
The Vote?

• 5) Direct Election Reforms both represented the
  Progressive attitude toward popular democracy.
• First direct democracy (or popular democracy)
  could only work if the public is educated. (With
  no education on democracy people would revert
  back to the comfort of political machines, which
  was a vice to Progressives. By 1920, 20 states
  had accepted one of the following.)
• a) ____________________ (initiative) A bill
  originated by the people rather than lawmakers,
  and done so by petition.
• b) ____________________ (referendum) Instances
  where the voters, not state legislatures,
  accepted an initiative by a vote.
• c) ____________________ (recall) This enabled
  voters to remove public officials from elected
  office by facing another election before their
  term is done.
• d) ____________________ (Seventeenth Amendment)
  This allowed for the election of US senators by
  the people rather than state legislatures in
  1913.

10
TRs Accomplishments

• 6) Enlightened public and a Strengthened
  Executive.
• ?Teddy Roosevelt becomes president after the
  assassination of William McKinley in 1901.
• ?Teddy urged Americans to Speak softly and carry
  a big stick
• ?Roosevelts Square Deal which emphasized the
  curbing of trusts (or trust busting).
• ?Teddy used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 as
  justification. Work with mixed success, worked
  with the Northern Securities Companys monopoly
  over northwestern railroads

11
Teddys Accomplishments

• ?Roosevelt sought federal regulation and pushed
  through regulation of railroads (Hepburn Act of
  1906 gave the Interstate Commerce Commission
  power to set max rates).
• ?Food and medicine (Meat Inspection Act of 1906
  created federal inspectors and the Pure Food and
  Drug Act of 1906, which halted the sale of
  contaminated foods and medicines as well as
  truthful labels).
• ?The environment (he used executive power to set
  aside 50 wildlife sanctuaries and national
  parks.) Instead of complete preservation of
  wilderness Roosevelt saw that only some would be
  preserved and other would be developed for the
  common good.)

12
The Progressive Presidents

• TRs New Nationalism (1901-1908) vs.
• Taft (1908-1912) vs.
• Wilsons (1912-1920) New Freedom

13
Trust-Busting

• Two strains of American thought that demonstrate
  why the Progressive Era progresses the way it
  does. They are represented by
• 1) Alexis de Tocqueville (Traveled the US in
  the early 1800s) Commented on American democracy
  by saying that the Puritan ethic of hard work in
  the pursuit of salvation (hard work and economic
  success was evidence that ones soul would be
  saved) was dangerous in a democracy like the
  United States.
• Why? Because this type of individualism (pursuit
  of individual success) would lead to
  self-gratification, and the lack of public virtue
  would lead to political indifference, social
  conformity, and submission to tyranny and
  democratic despotism.

14
Max Weber?

• 2) Max Weber (late 1800s and early 1900s
  German) worried about the opposite tendency of
  Tocqueville. That instead of individuals acting
  democratically, people will turn to the
  government for protection. Thus, a bureaucratic
  (the people administrating government) monster is
  bornand people will then be less political and
  more bureaucratic pawns.

15
More on TR?

• Why are the thoughts of Weber and Tocqueville
  important reflections of the Progressive Era?
  ____________________________
• While president (1901-1908), TR talked of
  trust-busting, but in reality he didnt believe
  in trust-busting (or breaking up monopolies)
• TR was quoted as saying it was an impossible
  task of restoringthe conditions of business
  sixty years ago by trusting only to the
  succession of lawsuits.
• TR also said the man who advocates destroying
  the trustsby measures which would paralyze the
  industries of the country is at least a quack and
  at worst an enemy to the Republic

16
More on TR

• According to TR, trust-busting would not restore
  the old competitive and democratic order.        
  
• TR believed the government should not be a
  trust-busting activist, but instead should
  organize to expose big business when its good or
  bad, and subject big business to regulation.
  (Meat Inspection Act (1906) and the Pure Food and
  Drug Act (1906) were all examples of this)

17
TR to Taft

• So the cornerstone to TRs New Nationalism (not
  so named until the presidential race of 1912) was
  a belief that trusts were not harmful to
  competition as long as they were subject to
  federal regulation.  
• TRs handpicked candidate William H. Taft ran
  for president in 1908 and won.

18
Taft vs. TR

• Tafts claim to fame was aggravating TR on the
  trust issue (90 instances of enforcing
  trust-busting). The most famous instance was the
  prosecution of US Steel, Standard Oil Company and
  the American Tobacco Company under anti-trust
  statutes for a business deal that had TRs
  approval. 
• TR split with Taft and the Republican Party by
  the 1912 election. He went on to assume the
  leadership of the Progressive Party or Bull
  Moose Party (abandoned by Wiscon. Robert La
  Follette).
• Bull Moose Partys name was derived from the
  characteristics of strength and vigor often used
  by Roosevelt to describe himself.

19
What do you think?

• How would you view both TR and Taft?______________
  ______________
• Are they defending what De Tocqueville saw as
  Americas Puritan work ethic or do they represent
  what Weber thought was Americas natural
  progression toward federal regulation and
  administration or do we find both Tocqueville and
  Weber in both TRs and Tafts policies?
  ______________________________
• Why do you choose what you choose?
  ________________________________________

20
Enter Wilson

• The Bull Moose ticket polled some 25 percent of
  the popular vote in 1912, which split the
  Republican vote.
• Woodrow Wilson polled less than 50 of the vote. 
• Son of a Presbyterian minister, Wilson was
  governor of New Jersey in 1910 and president at
  Princeton University in 1902 before running for
  president in 1912. (He had his law degree and was
  interested in international politics.)

21
Wilsons Politics and Trusts

• Wilson ran on the New Freedom platform 1)
  conservation, 2) corrupt practices act, 3)
  banking and currency reform, 4) tariff, 5) tended
  to view monopolies as positive evils unfavorable
  to the existence of free competition.  
• Wilson tried to differentiate between efficient
  monopolies and inefficient monopoliesHe said I
  am for big business and Im against the trusts.
• Whats the difference between this and TRs view
  of trusts? _________________________

22
New Freedom

• Once he came into office, Wilsons New Freedom
  platform looked more and more like TRs New
  Nationalism.  
• Wilson pushed through the Clayton Anti-Trust Act
  (1914) (It enforced the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by
  sayingno price discriminations pertaining to a
  monopoly and no stockholding which would lessen
  competition, almost impossible to prove in Court)
  and the Federal Trade Commission Act (1914)
  (arbiter of unfair trade practices in order to
  prevent monopoly).

23
Wilson and Trusts

• Wilsons Anti-Trust Division was expanded by only
  8 men, and this was done only after the war
  beganBy 1955, the Securities and Exchange
  Commission needed 1,200 men. By 1913, Wilson was
  actually inviting members of business into the
  White House because a depression had started.
• Considering these aspects of Wilsons policies,
  was his form of Progress Era progressivism any
  different from TRs? _____________________

24
Progressive Questions

• Was Wilson defending what De Tocqueville saw as
  Americas Puritan work ethic or does Wilson
  represent what Weber thought was Americas
  natural progression toward federal regulation and
  administration or do we find both Tocqueville and
  Weber in both TRs and Tafts policies?
  __________________________________
• Why do you choose what you choose?
  __________________________________________________
  ______________________________

25
Wilson and the War

• Wilsons wartime and post-war policies
  essentially end the domestic forms of Progressive
  Era and the Progressive movement and focus
  attention overseas.
• Progressivism, though, follows Wilsons
  international policies, and we call this today
  Wilsonianism. 
• Wilson wins second term in 1916 on a platform
  keeping America out of the war (World War I
  starts in 1914) and neutral, and out of Old
  World politics. His slogan he kept us out of
  war was very effective. By April 1917, this all
  changes.