The Progressive Era

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The Progressive Era
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Progressivism

• A movement to improve American life by expanding
  democracy and achieving economic and social
  justice.
• This was not an organized set of reforms, but
  rather a collection of ideas and activities.
• After seeing the poverty of the working class and
  the filth and crime of urban society, these
  reformers began to doubt the free markets
  ability to address these problems.
• Science and technology had benefited people thus
  the progressives believed using scientific
  principles could also produce solutions for
  society.

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• Muckrakers- a group of crusading journalists who
  investigated social conditions and political
  corruption. They became known as muckrakers from
  a speech made by President Theodore Roosevelt.
• Now, it is very necessary that we should not
  flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing.
  There is filth on the floor and it must be
  scraped up with the muck-rake and there are
  times and places where this service is the most
  needed of all the services that can be
  performed.
• By the early 1900s, American publishers were
  competing to see who could expose the most
  corruption and scandal.
• Some muckrakers exposed unfair practices of large
  American corporations. Standard Oil, the beef
  industry. Others targeted the government. And
  some concentrated on the social problems

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Muckrakers

• Lincoln Steffens articles about corrupt
  practices of political machines that were
  combined and published as a book titled The Shame
  of the Cities
• Ida Tarbell wrote articles about the unfair
  practices of huge monopolies and wrote The
  History of the Standard Oil Company
• John Spargo wrote about the grim life of
  thousands of children and wrote the book The
  Bitter Cry of the Children
• Upton Sinclair - wrote The Jungle, an exposure
  of the terrible conditions of the Chicago
  meatpacking plants.
• Jacob Riis wrote about the immigrant slum
  areas.
• Muckrakers offered readers few solutions, but
  they did sound an alarm. In response, many
  Americans joined the crusade for reform.

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Government Reform

• Efficiency progressives argued that managing a
  modern city required experts, not politicians.
• They wanted either a commission plan or a
  council-manager system. Under the commission
  plan a citys government would be divided into
  several departments, which would each be placed
  under the control of an expert commissioner.
• Others believed that society needed more
  democracy, not less. They wanted to make elected
  officials more responsive to voters.
• When reformer Robert La Follette was elected
  governor of Wisconsin, he pressured the state
  legislature to require each party to hold a
  direct primary, in which all party members could
  vote for a candidate to run in the general
  election.
• LaFollettes reform was known as the Wisconsin
  Idea. He recruited experts known as the brain
  trust, to solve state problems and write laws
  and serve on govt. commissions. This successful
  Idea was called a laboratory for democracy.

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Government Reform

• Because of this reform, they called Wisconsin the
  laboratory of democracy.
• Progressives in other states introduced three new
  reforms initiative allowed a group of
  citizens to introduce legislation and required
  the legislature to vote on it. Referendum
  allowed proposed legislation to be submitted to
  the voters for approval. Recall allowed
  voters to demand a special election to remove an
  elected official from office before his or her
  term expired.

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• To counter Senate corruption, Charles Russell
  complained that the Senate had become a chamber
  of butlers for industrialists and financiers,
  progressives called for the direct election of
  senators by all state voters. Prior to this
  amendment, senators were elected by state
  legislature. In 1912 Congress passed a
  direct-election amendment (17th Amendment)

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The Suffrage Movement

• July 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia
  Mott organized the first womens rights
  convention in Seneca Falls, NY. Stanton proposed
  to the delegates that their first priority should
  be getting women the right to vote. The movement
  for womens voting rights became known as the
  suffrage movement. Suffrage is the right to
  vote.
• Before the Civil War some women preferred to work
  towards the abolition of slavery.

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The Suffrage Movement

• After the Civil War the 14th and 15th Amendments
  were passed to protect the voting rights of
  African Americans. The women hoped that these
  amendments would be worded so they would include
  women as well.
• The debate over these two amendments split the
  womens movement in two National Woman Suffrage
  Assoc. led by Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B.
  Anthony the National American Woman Suffrage
  Assoc. led by Lucy Stone, Carrie Chapman Catt and
  Julia Ward Hower.
• Stantons group wanted to focus on passing a
  constitutional amendment allowing women suffrage.
  The Catts group believed that the best strategy
  was to convince state governments to give women
  the right to vote before trying to amend the
  Constitution.

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The Suffrage Movement

• In 1890 Alice Paul brought the two groups
  together to form the National American Woman
  Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Still the hardest
  part was to get women to become politically
  active. When the Progressive movement began,
  however, many middle-class women concluded that
  they needed the vote to promote social reforms
  they favored.
• By end of 1912, Washington, Oregon, California,
  Arizona, and Kansas had granted women full voting
  rights.
• Alice Paul organized a march on Washington DC the
  day before Pres. Wilsons inauguration.
• 1918 House of Representatives passed a woman
  suffrage amendment. Pres. Wilson addressed the
  Senate to encourage them to pass this but it
  failed by two votes.
• Finally by 1919 Senate passed the 19th Amendment
  by just more than the 2/3 vote needed.
• 19th Amendment went into effect Aug. 26, 1920.

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Social Welfare Progressivism

• Campaign against child labor in 1900 over 1.7
  million children under the age of 16 worked
  outside the home.
• 1904 Natl. Child Labor Comm. To work to abolish
  child labor.
• At same time many states began passing compulsory
  education laws, requiring young children to be in
  school instead of at work.
• By the early 1900s the number of child laborers
  had begun to decline.
• Many adult workers still labored in difficult
  conditions. Factories, coal mines, and railroads
  were particularly dangerous.
• Progressives joined union leaders to pressure
  states for workers compensation laws which was
  insurance for employees who got hurt on the job.
• These laws established insurance funds financed
  by employers. Workers injured in industrial
  accidents received payments from the funds.
• Minimum wage laws for women were passed in 12
  states. As well as laws barring children from
  working at night.

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Social Welfare Progressivism

• Building codes set minimum standards for light,
  air, room size, and sanitation, and required
  buildings to have fire escapes.
• Health codes required restaurants and other
  facilities to maintain clean environments for
  their patrons.
• Zoning laws divided towns or cities into areas
  for commercial, residential, or other
  development.
• Many progressives believed that alcohol was
  responsible for many problems in American life.
  The temperance movement, which advocated the
  moderation or elimination of alcohol, emerged
  from these concerns.
• 1873 Womens Christian Temperance Union had
  250,000 members by 1893

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Social Welfare Progressivism

• Anti-Saloon league pressed for Prohibition -
  laws banning the manufacture, sale, and
  consumption of alcohol.
• A fourth group of progressives focused on
  regulating big business. Some believed that
  government should break up big companies to
  restore competition. Sherman Anti-trust Act.
• Others argued for the creation of government
  agencies to regulate big companies and prevent
  them from abusing their power. ICC
• Some even advocated socialism where government
  actually owns and operates industry for the
  community as a whole. Socialism had some
  national supporters Eugene Debs, the former
  American Railway Union leader, won nearly a
  million votes as the American Socialist Party
  candidate for president in 1912.

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Roosevelt Revives the Presidency

• Eugene Debs - a candidate for President of the US
  as a member of the Socialist Party of America in
  1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920.Through his
  presidential candidacies as well as his work with
  labor movements, Debs would eventually become one
  of the best-known Socialists in the United
  States.
• President Theodore Roosevelt took over the
  presidency when William McKinley was
  assassinated. He was 42, the youngest president
  yet. He was a member of the Rough Riders during
  the Spanish American War. He was a very dynamic
  person who loved the spotlight.
• Roosevelt was a Social Darwinist. He believed
  the US was in competition with the other nations
  of the world and that only the fittest would
  survive.
• Domestically Roosevelt was a committed
  progressive who firmly believed that the
  government should actively balance the needs of
  competing groups in American society.
• He said, I shall see to it, that every man has a
  square deal, no less and no more. During his
  second term, his reform program became known as
  the Square Deal.

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• Roosevelt believed that trusts and other large
  business organizations were very efficient and
  part of the reason for Americas prosperity. Yet
  remained concerned that in the pursuit of their
  private interests, some trusts were hurting the
  public interest.
• During his first term three railroad companies
  joined to form one Northern Securities.
• Alarmed at this union, Roosevelt decided that
  this company was in violation of the Sherman
  Antitrust Act and ordered his attorney to file a
  lawsuit against Northern Securities.
• The Supreme Court ruled that they were in
  violation and Roosevelt became known as a
  trustbuster and his popularity soared!

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• Coal Strike of 1902 Nearly 150,000 workers
  walked out of eastern Pennsylvanias anthracite
  mines, demanding a pay increase, a reduction in
  work hours, and recognition for their union,
  (United Mine Workers UMW)
• If the strike drug on too long, the country would
  face a coal shortage that could shut down
  factories and leave many peoples homes cold with
  winter fast approaching. Roosevelt said this was
  an example of groups pursuing their private
  interests at the expense of the nation.
• President Roosevelt urged that the company and
  the union accept arbitration a settlement
  imposed by an outside party. The union agreed,
  the mine owners did not.
• Roosevelt threatened to have the Army run the
  mines so the mine owners finally accepted
  arbitration.
• By intervening in the dispute, Roosevelt had
  taken the first step toward establishing the
  federal government as an honest broker between
  powerful groups in society.

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• Bureau of Corporations Roosevelt still believed
  that most trusts benefited the economy and that
  breaking them up would do more harm than good.
• So Roosevelt proposed the creation of a new
  federal agency to investigate corporations and
  publicize the results.
• 1903 Roosevelt convinced Congress to create the
  Department of Commerce and Labor. Within this
  department would be a division called the Bureau
  of Corporations with the authority to investigate
  corporations and issue reports on their
  activities.
• Congress also passed the Expedition Act which
  gave federal antitrust suits precedence on the
  dockets of circuits.
• 1906 Roosevelt pushed the Hepburn Act through
  Congress which was intended to strengthen the ICC
  by giving it power to set railroad rates. After
  years of fighting it, the ICC became a supporter
  of the railroads interests and by 1920 began
  setting rates at levels intended to ensure the
  industrys profits.

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Roosevelts Square Deal

• Meat inspection Act required federal inspection
  of meat sold through interstate commerce and
  required the Agriculture Department to set
  standards of cleanliness in meatpacking plants.
• Pure Food and Drug Act prohibited the
  manufacture, sale, or shipment of impure or
  falsely labeled food and drugs.

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Conservation

• Roosevelt cautioned against unregulated
  exploitation of public lands and believed in
  conservation to manage the nations resources.
• Land development in the West Newlands
  Reclamation Act, a large-scale transformation of
  the Wests landscape and economy authorizing the
  use of federal funds from public land sales to
  pay for irrigation and land development projects.
  
• Gifford Pinchot headed the US Forest
  Service. Roosevelt argued that the government
  must distinguish between the man who skins the
  land and the man who develops the country. I am
  going to work with the man who develops the
  country. Pinchots department drew up
  regulations controlling lumbering on federal
  lands.

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President Roosevelt

• Changed the role of the federal government and
  the nature of the presidency. Increasingly
  Americans began to look to the federal government
  to solve the nations economic and social
  problems.
• Under Roosevelt the executive branch of
  government had dramatically increased its power.
  
• The ICC could set rates, the Agriculture
  Department could inspect food, the Bureau of
  Corporations could monitor business, and the
  attorney general could rapidly bring antitrust
  lawsuits under the Expedition Act.

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Passing the Reins

• Financial Panic of 1907 hindered Roosevelts
  effectiveness at end of term. Business was
  further alarmed when Roosevelt proposed new
  reform measures such as inheritance and income
  taxes, more regulation of interstate commerce,
  federal investigations of labor disputes, 8 hour
  workdays, workers comp, and federal regulation
  of the stock markets.
• Roosevelt handpicked his successor, William
  Howard Taft, another progressive.

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William Taft President 1908

• Although committed to many progressive ideas,
  Tafts personality and approach to politics
  quickly brought him into conflict with
  progressives.
• Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act Progressives felt
  betrayed by Tafts decision to accept this new
  tariff.
• Taft disliked political maneuvering and preferred
  to avoid conflict with others.

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William Taft President 1908

• Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy Taft replaced his
  Secretary of Treasury with Richard a. Ballinger,
  a more conservative corporate lawyer. Ballinger
  tried to make nearly a million acres of public
  forests and mineral reserves available for
  private development.
• Pinchot charged the new secretary with having
  once plotted to turn over valuable public lands
  in Alaska to a private syndicate or business
  group for personal profit. Pinchot leaked the
  story to the press but Taft fired Pinchot for
  insubordination.
• By signing the Payne-Aldrich Tariff and
  supporting Ballinger Taft gave the impression
  that he had sold the Square Deal down the
  river.

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Tafts Progressive Reforms

• Despite all of his political problems, Taft also
  had several successes.
• Taft established the Childrens Bureau, a federal
  agency similar to Roosevelts Bureau of
  Corporations. It investigated and publicized
  problems with child labor
• Taft also supported the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910
  which increased the regulatory powers of the ICC.
• Taft set up the Bureau of Mines to monitor the
  activities of mining companies, expanded the
  national forests, and protected waterpower sites
  from private development.

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New President Woodrow Wilson 1912

• Theodore Roosevelt broke his friendship with Taft
  by publicly criticizing Taft for his dealings
  with trusts. Roosevelt announced that he would
  enter the presidential campaign of 1912 and
  attempt to replace Taft as the Republican nominee
  for President, he ran under the Bull Moose Party
• Conservatives rallied behind Taft and
  Progressives lined up for Roosevelt. This did
  nothing but divide the Republican party.
• Woodrow Wilson entered politics as a firm
  progressive. As governor of New Jersey, he
  pushed one Progressive reform after another
  through the statehouse.

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• Roosevelt called his program New Nationalism
  which supported outlined a complete program of
  reforms.
• Wilson countered with what he called the New
  Freedom. He criticized Roosevelts program as
  one that supported regulated monopoly. Wilson
  argued that Roosevelts approach gave the federal
  government too much power in the economy and did
  nothing to restore competition. Wilson wanted to
  lower tariffs because he felt it would prevent
  monopolies
• Wilson wins the election with less than 42 of
  the popular vote as the Republican vote was split
  between Roosevelt and Taft.

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Regulating the Economy

• During his eight years as president, Wilson
  demonstrated his power as he crafted reforms
  affecting tariffs, the banking system, trusts,
  and workers rights.
• Reforming tariffs Wilson declared that high
  tariffs had built up a set of privileges and
  exemptions from competition behind which it was
  easy. to organize monopoly untilnothing is
  obliged to stand the tests of efficiency and
  economy.

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• 1913 Democrat-controlled Congress passed the
  Underwood Tariff and Wilson signed it into law.
  This Tariff reduced the average tariff on
  imported goods to about 30 of the value of the
  goods, or about half the tariff rate of the
  1890s.
• An important section of the Underwood Tax was the
  provision for levying an income tax, or a direct
  tax on the earnings of individuals and
  corporations. The Constitution originally
  prohibited direct taxes unless they were
  apportioned among the states on the basis of
  population.
• The 16th Amendment in 1913 made it legal for the
  federal government to tax the income of
  individuals directly.

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• The US had not had a central bank since the
  1830s.
• Hundreds of small banks collapsed during
  economical depressions that hit the country
  periodically.
• 1907 was one of those depressed times.
• To restore public confidence in the banking
  system Wilson supported the establishment of a
  Federal Reserve system. Banks would have to keep
  a portion of their deposits in a regional reserve
  bank, which would provide a financial cushion
  against unanticipated losses.
• The Board of Governors would set the interest
  rates the reserve banks charged other banks,
  thereby indirectly controlling the interest rates
  of the entire nation and the amount of money in
  circulation.
• Congress approved the Federal Reserve Act in 1913
  and it became one of the most significant pieces
  of legislation in American History.

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• During his campaign, Wilson had promised to
  restore competition to the economy by breaking up
  big business monopolies. Roosevelt argued that
  Wilsons ideas were unrealistic because big
  business was more efficient and unlikely to be
  replaced by smaller, more competitive firms.
  Once in office, Wilsons opinion shifted, and he
  came to agree with Roosevelt but progressives
  in Congress continued to demand action against
  big business.

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• 1914 Congress created the Federal Trade
  Commission (FTC) to monitor American business.
  FTC had the power to investigate companies and
  issue cease and desist orders against companies
  engaging in unfair trade practices, or those
  which hurt competition. The FTC could be taken
  to court if a business disagreed with its
  rulings.
• Wilson deliberately appointed conservative
  business leaders to serve as the FTCs first
  commissioners so that they would work with
  business to limit activities that unfairly
  limited competition instead of just breaking up
  big business.

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• Wilson passed the Adamson Act which supported an
  8 hour work day for railroad workers.
• Wilsons approach did not satisfy progressives in
  Congress who responded by passing the Clayton
  Antitrust Act. This act declared that unions
  were not unlawful combinations in restraint of
  trade. This came to be called the Magna Carta
  for the workers because it gave unions the right
  to exist.

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• Federal Aid and Social Welfare
• 1916 Wilson signed the first federal law
  regulating child labor. The Keating-Owen Child
  Labor Act prohibited the employment of children
  under the age of 14 in factories producing goods
  for interstate commerce. The Supreme Court
  declared the law unconstitutional on the grounds
  that child labor was not interstate commerce and
  therefore only states could regulate it.
• Adamson Act 8 hour workday for RR workers
• Federal Farm Loan Act created 12 Federal Land
  Banks to provide farmers with long-term loans at
  low interest rates.

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Legacy of Progressivism

• Progressivism made important changes in the
  political life of the US. Before this era, most
  Americans did not expect the government to pass
  laws protecting workers or regulating big
  business. In fact many courts had previously
  ruled that it was unconstitutional for the
  government to do so. By the end of this era,
  people now expected the government to play a more
  active role in regulating the economy and solving
  social problems.

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Limits of Progressivism

• The most conspicuous limit to progressivism was
  its failure to address African American reform
  issues.
• 1909 National Association for the Advancement of
  Colored People (NAACP). W.E.B. DuBois and other
  founders believed that the vote was essential to
  bring about an end to lynching and racial
  discrimination.
• Although Progressives excluded many groups from
  their efforts, they did expand democracy and
  improve the quality of life for millions of men,
  women, and children.

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Constitutional Amendments

• The 16th Amendment in 1913 made it legal for the
  federal government to tax the income of
  individuals directly.

• In 1912 Congress passed a direct-election
  amendment (17th Amendment)

1918 House of Representatives passed a woman
suffrage amendment. Pres. Wilson addressed the
Senate to encourage them to pass this but it
failed by two votes. Finally by 1919 Senate
passed the 19th Amendment by just more than the
2/3 vote needed.