Progressivism (1900-1917)

Progressivism was influenced by previous reform movements:

•Greenback labor Party

•Mugwumps

•Labor Movement (NLU, KofL)

•Grange and Farmer Alliance Movements

•And especially Populist Movement (Omaha Platform of 1892)

Some populist ideas fulfilled during the Progressive Era (1900-1917)

• railroad legislation (1903 & 1906)

• income tax (16th Amendment -- 1912)

• expanded currency and credit structure (1913, 1916)

• direct election of Senators (17th Amendment -- 1913)

• initiative, referendum and recall (early 1900s)

• postal savings banks (1910)

• subtreasury plan (1916)

Goals of Progressives:

• The break-up or regulation of trusts

• Killing political machines

• Reduce the threat of socialism (by improving workers’ lives)

• Improve squalid conditions in the cities

• Improve working conditions for female labor and end child labor

• Consumer protection

• Voting reform

• Conservation

• banking reform

• labor reform (working conditions and unionization)

• Prohibition of alcohol

• Female suffrage

Progressive ThinkersJohn Dewey (1859-1952)

"learning by doing"

•education for living and working played a crucial role in democracy •Goal was to create socially useful adults• Education for life = primary goal of teacher

Lester Frank Ward

•Challenged "survival of the fittest" thought

•Argued it was natural for people to control and change their social environment -- the laws, customs, and relationships among people-- for their own benefit.        •It was the role of gov’t to shape society’s destiny.

Richard Ely

•Strong supporter of social gospel

Charles Beard

• historian who applied history to reform corrupt city governments.

•Famous for his analysis of the constitution

Advances in science

•Massive public-health program launched by Rockefeller Foundation in South in 1909 virtually wiped out hookworm by 1920s.

• Better nutrition and health care helped increase life expectancy of a newborn infant from 50 years in 1901 to 59 years in 1929.

Mucrakers (named by TR)

•Journalists who attempted to expose the evils of society

•Popular magazines such as McClure’s, Cosmopolitan (owned by Hearst), Collier’s, and Everybody’s emerged.

Lincoln Steffens Shame of the Cities

Ida M. Tarbell

• Detailed Rockefeller’s ruthless tactics to crush competition (including her father)

• In 1911, Standard Oil trust broken up as result.

Upton Sinclair -- The Jungle (1906)

•Graphic depictions of the unsanitary conditions in the packing plant sparked a reaction to the meat industry and led to eventual regulation under Theodore Roosevelt

• Inspired Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)

David G. Phillips -- "The Treason of the State", articles in Cosmopolitan

•Charged that 75 of 90 senators did not represent the people but rather the trusts and the railroads. (Eventually shot)

• Provoked President Roosevelt to label this genre of journalism "muckraking"

•As a result, fewer muckraking pieces appeared as editors became fearful of backlash.

John Spargo -- The Bitter Cry of the Children (1906)

Ray Stannard Baker -- Following the Color Line (1908)

•Attacked the subjugation of America’s 9 million blacks, & their illiteracy

Frank Norris -- The Octopus (1901)

•Detailed stranglehold of railroad and corrupt politicians on California wheat ranchers

Theodore Dreisler: The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914)

Progressive Activists:

•Jane Adams – Settlement House Movement, Child Labor Reform

•Florence Kelly - National Consumers League

Gains for women and child Labor

•Muller v. Oregon, 1906

*upheld Oregon law restricting women’s labor to 10-hour workday

*case won by Louis Brandeis who argued that women were weaker than men

Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire (1911)

146 women workers, mostly girls killed

Result of the fire:

•NYC and other legislatures passed laws regulating the hours and conditions in sweatshops.

•By 1916, 32 states regulated the hours and ages at which children could work

•Some states adopted compulsory education up to the high school level.

Robert LaFollette

"Wisconsin Experiment”

-First Republican senator who stood against “Old Guard” Republicans and laissez faire

Wisconsin Experiment

•Direct primary

•Initiative, referendum, recall

•Direct election of Senators (later would become 17th amendment)

•state income tax (16th Amendment)

•Australian Ballot

Hiram Johnson (R. from California), Charles Evans Hughes (R. from NY) and Wodroow Wilson (D. from NJ) would follow Wisconsin’s lead

Galveston, Texas and the Commission System

•The city placed power into the hands of 5 commissioners, 2 elected & 3 appointed; a full-time city manager was hired.            

•Commission system peaked in 1915  (later replaced by city manager system.)      

•Within 20 years, 400 cities adopted Commission System            

•Reduced the power of machine politics, but increased power of businessmen

TR and Progressivism

Square Deal

Based on 3 C’s:

1. Control of the corporations 2. Consumer protection 3. Conservation of natural resources

Control of Corporations

Anthracite Coal Strike (1902)

George F. Baer asks TR to intervene using Sherman Anti-Trust Act

•TR threatened to seize mines and operate them with federal troops if owners refused to compromise (unprecedented in U.S. history)

•Owners consented to arbitration

•Miners get 9 hour day, 10% increase in wages, coal price increased 10% as well

•Department of Commerce & Labor created to settle disputes between capital and labor in 1903.

•Bureau of Corporations – authorized to check monopolies

Northern Securities Co.

•TR goes against J. P. Morgan & James G. Hill company

•Supreme Court upholds the decision (1904)

•TR nicknamed “trustbuter”

•Eventually goes after DuPont, American Tobacco Co., Standard Oil etc.

Elkins Act (1903) and Hepburn Act (1906)

•Aimed primarily at reducing abuse of rebates used by railroads.         

•Heavy fines could now be imposed on both railroads and

shippers for abusing rebates.

•Expanded the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission (created in 1887)                 •Severely restricted railroad’s giving of free passes (bribery)                 •Could nullify existing rates and stipulate maximum rates if necessary.

• Concluded that there were "good trusts" and "bad trusts"

Results of TR’s “trustbusting”?

Consumer Protection

Meat Inspection Act (1906)

•Preparation of meat shipped over state lines would be subject to federal inspection throughout the meat making process.            

•Though largest packers resisted certain features of the act, they accepted it as a means to drive out smaller businesses.

Pure Food & Drug Act (1906) •Prevented adulteration and mislabeling of foods and drugs.

•Hitherto, many patent medicines laced with alcohol while labels misrepresented the contents of their containers.

Conservation

•Most enduring of his policies (including Panama Canal)

•Advocated intelligent use, not preservation: recreation, sustain-yield logging, watershed protection and summer stock grazing on same expanse of federal land

•Appointed Gifford Pinchot to be chief of Forestry in Dept of Agr.

Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902

•Gov’t authorized to collect money from sale of public lands in western states and use funds for development of irrigation projects

• Dozens of dams constructed on virtually every major western river

In addition:

•TR set aside 125 million acres of forests in federal reserves. (3X as much as his 3 predecessors)

•Also earmarked millions of acres of coal deposits, as well as water resources useful for irrigation and power.

Panic of 1907

•Business leaders blamed TR (Roosevelt’s Panic)

•TR felt hurt, started second wave of trust busting

•Panic showed the need of financial institution that would provide enough money in circulation

•Progressive ideas finally widely accepted

Election of 1908

•TR picked his successor

•Taft easily defeats Bryan (321-162)

•Taft aligns himself with Old Guard Republicans

Despite this he:

•Brings 90 suits against big corporations (2x more than TR)

•Court applied rule of reason (hurt the anti-trust activities)

•1911 - Standard Oil forced to dissolve

•Created the Bureau of Mines to save resources

•Mann-Elkins Act (1910)- puts telephone, telegraph under ICC jurisdiction

• Postal Savings Bank System (1910)

Taft-Roosevelt Split

•Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909) - signed by Taft (37%)

•Ballinger-Pinchot controversy (1910) – Taft fired Pinchot (chief of division of forestry, close friend of TR)

1910, Roosevelt?s Osawatomie speech, Kansas.

•Shocked Old Guard Republicans with new doctrine: "New Nationalism"

•Urged federal gov’t to increase its power to remedy economic & social abuses.            

•Regulation of large corporations, tariff reform, graduated income & inheritance taxes; currency reform; selling of public lands only in small parcels to bona fide setters; labor reforms; strict accounting of campaign funds; and initiative, referendum & recall.            

“The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desireable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens."

•TR decides to run in 1912 election

•Republicans nominate Taft

•TR decides to form a new party (Bull-Moose Party or Progressive Party), thus splitting the Republican vote

“My hat is in the ring!”

1912 Election

Platform: antitrust legislation, monetary changes, and tariff reductions

Favored small enterprise, entrepreneurship, and free functioning of unregulated and unmonopolized markets; states’ rights

Wilson’s “New Freedom”

•First four years saw more positive legislation since at any time since Alexander Hamilton.

• Aimed to attack the "triple wall of privilege": the tariff, the banks, and the trusts.

The Tariff

Underwood Tariff Bill – 1913

• Wilson summoned Congress into special session in early 1913 and read message in person rather than by a clerk (not done since Jefferson)

•Appealed to the people

•Tariff passes

•Enacted a graduated income tax, under authority granted by recently ratified 16th Amendment.  

•Rate of 1% on incomes over $4,000; 7% on incomes over $500k

•By 1917, revenue from income tax more than tariff receipts.

Banking Reform•Pujo Committee

•Louis Brandeis: Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It (1913)

• Federal Reserve Act of 1913 signed into law in 1913 (Wilson appears in Congress for the second time to make Congress pass it)

•The Federal Reserve Board appointed by president and had the authority to print “federal reserve notes”

The Trusts

•Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 – once again Wilson goes directly to Congress

•Empowered presidentially appointed commission to monitor industries engaged in interstate commerce e.g. meat packers

• cease and desist orders: Commissioners could end unfair trade practices, including unlawful competition, false advertising, mislabeling, adulteration, & bribery

•Despite its power not enforced that much!

Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914

•To implement Sherman Anti-Trust by increasing list of business practices deemed objectionable including price discrimination & interlocking directorates.

•Exempted labor and agricultural organizations from antitrust prosecution while explicitly legalizing strikes and peaceful picketing.

•Union leader Samuel Gompers hailed the act as the "Magna Carta of labor"

In order to win election of 1916, Wilson signed other reforms (some which he had earlier blocked believing they were state matters)

1. Embraced some of Roosevelt’s New Nationalism ideas to attract progressives.  

2. Appointed Louis Brandeis, the "people’s lawyer" to the Supreme Court

3. Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916: low-interest credit available to farmers. (Populist idea)

4. Federal Highway Act of 1916 provided highway construction in rural areas

5. La Follette Seamen’s Act of 1915 required decent treatment and living wages on U.S. merchant ships.        

6. Warehouse Act of 1916: authorized loans on the security of staple crops. (Populist subtreasury plan idea)

7. Workingmen’s Compensation Act of 1916 -- Granted assistance to federal civil-service employees during periods of disability.        

8. Child Labor Act of 1916 restricted child labor on products in interstate commerce.

•1st time Congress regulated labor with a state using interstate commerce power

•Invalidated by Court in 1918 on grounds that it interfered with states’ powers.

9. Adamson Act of 1916 established an 8-hr day for all employees on trains in interstate commerce, with extra pay for overtime, & maximum 16-hr shifts. 10. Minimum wages.         11. Prisons and "reform" schools forced to change goal from punishment to rehabilitation.

Prohibition of Alcohol

•18th Amendment (1919) banned sale, transport, manufacturing, or consumption of alcohol.  

•Volstead Act passed in 1919 to enforce 18th Amendment

Women Suffrage

•National American Woman Suffrage Association grew from 13K in 1893 to 75,000 in 1910 led by Carrie Chapman Catt.

• "Winning Plan" emphasized lobbying Congress, effective meetings & parades.

•Publicized women’s contributions to the war effort which President Wilson used in urging Congress to approve suffrage.

Alice Paul’s Congressional Union used militant tactics to gain attention such as picketing the White House in 1916 and going on hunger strikes.

•Put forth Equal Rights Amendment after 1920 (readopted in 1960s but eventually killed in 1982 when three-fourths of states did not ratify)

•19th Amendment passed in 1920 granting women full suffrage.

•Bill put forth in the House by Jeannette Rankin: first woman in Congress.