A.P.
Chapter
29: “Progressivism and the Republican
~
1901 – 1912 ~
I.
Progressive
Roots
1.
In
the beginning of the 1900s,
i.
The
purpose of the Progressive Movement was to use the government as an
agency of human welfare.
2.
The
Progressives had their roots in the Greenback Labor Party of the 1870s
and 1880s and the Populist Party of the 1890s.
3.
In
1894, Henry Demarest Lloyd exposed the corruption of the monopoly of the
Standard Oil Company with his book Wealth Against Commonwealth,
while Thorstein Veblen criticized the new rich (those who made money
from the trusts) in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899).
4.
Other
exposers of the corruption of trusts, or muckrakers, as Theodore
Roosevelt called them, were Jacob A. Riis, writer of How the
Other Half Lives, a book about the
5.
Socialists
and feminists gained strength, and with people like Jane Addams and Lillian
Wald, women entered the Progressive fight.
II.
Raking
Muck with the Muckrakers
1.
Beginning
about 1902, a group of aggressive ten- and fifteen-cent popular magazines, such
as Cosmopolitan, Collier’s, and Everybody’s,
began flinging the dirt about the trusts.
2.
Despite
criticism, reformer-writers ranged far and wide to lay bare the muck on the
back of American society.
i.
In
1902, Lincoln Steffens launched a series of articles in McClure’s entitled
“The Shame of the Cities,” in which he unmasked the corrupt alliance between
big business and the government.
ii.
Ida M. Tarbell launched a devastating exposé against Standard Oil.
3.
These
writers exposed the mean trust, the “money trust,” the railroad barons, and the
corrupt amassing of American fortunes, this last part done by Thomas W.
Lawson.
4.
David G. Phillips charged that 75 of the 90
5.
Ray Stannard Baker’s Following the Color Line was about the illiteracy of
Blacks.
6.
John Spargo’s The Bitter Cry of the Children exposed child labor.
7.
Dr.
Harvey W. Wiley exposed the frauds that sold potent patent medicines by
experimenting on himself.
8.
The
muckrakers sincerely believed that the cure to the ill so of American democracy
was more democracy.
III.
Political
Progressivism
1.
Progressives
were mostly middle-class citizens who felt squeezed by both the big trusts
above and the restless immigrant hordes working for cheap labor that came from
below.
2.
The
Progressives favored the “initiative” so that voters could directly
propose legislation, the “referendum” so that the people could vote on
laws that affected them, and the “recall” to take bad officials off from
their positions.
3.
Progressives
also desired to expose graft, use a secret ballot to counteract the effects of
party bosses, and have direct election of
i.
Finally,
in 1913, the 17th Amendment provided for direct election of
senators.
4.
Females
also campaigned for woman’s suffrage, but that did not come…yet.
IV.
Progressivism
in the Cities and States
1.
Progressive
cities either used expert-staffed commissions to manage urban affairs or the city-manager
system, which was designed to take politics out of municipal
administration.
2.
Urban
reformers tackled “slumlords,” juvenile delinquency, and wide-open
prostitution.
3.
In
Wisconsin, Governor Robert M. La Follette wrestled control from the
trusts and returned power to the people, becoming a Progressive leader in the
process.
i.
Other
states also took to regulate railroads and trusts, such as Oregon and
California, which was led by Governor Hiram W. Johnson.
ii.
Charles Evans Hughes, governor of New York, gained fame by investigating
the malpractices of gas and insurance companies.
V.
Battling
Social Ills
1.
Progressives
also made major improvements in the fight against child labor, especially after
a 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in NYC burned up 146
workers, mostly young women.
i.
The
landmark case of Muller vs. Oregon (1908) found attorney Louis
D. Brandeis persuading the Supreme Court to accept the constitutionality of
laws that protected women workers.
ii.
On
the other hand, the case of Lochner vs. New York invalidated a
New York law establishing a ten-hour day for bakers.
iii.
Yet,
in 1917, the Court upheld a similar law for factory workers.
2.
Alcohol
also came under the attack of Progressives, as prohibitionist organizations
like the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, founded by Frances E.
Willard, (WCTU) and the Anti-Saloon League were formed.
i.
Finally,
in 1919, the 18th Amendment prohibited the sale and drinking
of alcohol.
VI.
TR’s
Square Deal for Labor
1.
The
Progressivism spirit touched President Roosevelt, and his “Square Deal”
embraced the three Cs: control of the corporations, consumer
protection, and the conservation of the United States’ natural
resources.
2.
In
1902, a strike broke out in the anthracite coalmines of Pennsylvania, and some
140,000 workers demanded a 20% pay increase and the reduction of the workday to
nine hours.
i.
Finally,
after the owners refused to negotiate and the lack of coal was getting to the
freezing schools, hospitals, and factories during that winter, TR threatened to
seize the mines and operate them with federal troops if he had to in order to
keep it open and the coal coming to the people.
ii.
As
a result, the workers got a 10% pay increase and a 9-hour workday, but their
union was not officially recognized as a bargaining agent.
3.
In
1903, the Department of Commerce and Labor was formed, a part of which
was the Bureau of Corporations, which was allowed to probe businesses
engaged in interstate commerce; it was highly useful in “trust-busting.”
VII.
TR
Corrals the Corporations
1.
The
1887-formed Interstate Commerce Commission had proven to be inadequate,
so in 1903, Congress passed the Elkins Act, which heavily fined RR’s that
gave rebates and the shippers that accepted them.
2.
The
Hepburn Act restricted the free passes of railroads.
3.
TR
decided that there were “good trusts” and “bad trusts,” and set out to control
the “bad trusts,” such as the Northern Securities Company, which was
organized by J.P. Morgan and James J. Hill.
i.
In
1904, the Supreme Court upheld TR’s antitrust suit and ordered Northern
Securities to dissolve, a decision that angered Wall Street but helped TR’s
image.
4.
TR
did crack down on over 40 trusts, and he helped dissolve he beef, sugar,
fertilizer, and harvesters trusts, but in reality, he wasn’t as big of a
trustbuster as he has been portrayed.
i.
He
had no wish to take down the “good trusts,” but the trusts that did fall under
TR’s big stick fell symbolically, so that other trusts would reform themselves.
5.
TR’s
successor, William Howard Taft, crushed more trusts than TR, and in one
incident, when Taft tried to crack down on U.S. Steel, a company that
had personally allowed by TR to absorb the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company,
the reaction from TR was hot!
VIII.
Caring
of the Consumer
1.
In
1906, significant improvements in the meat industry were passed, such as the Meat
Inspection Act, which decreed that the preparation of meat shipped over
state lines would be subject to federal inspection from corral to can.
i.
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle enlightened the American public to
the horrors of the meatpacking industry, thus helping to force changes.
2.
The
Pure Food and Drug Act tried to prevent the adulteration and mislabeling
of foods and pharmaceuticals.
i.
Another
reason for new acts was to make sure European markets could trust American beef
and other meat.
IX.
Earth
Control
1.
Americans
were vainly wasting their natural resources, and the first conservation act,
the Desert Land Act of 1877, didn’t help much.
i.
More
successful was the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, which authorized the
president to set aside land to be protected as national parks.
a.
Under
this statute, some 46 million acres of forest were rescued.
2.
Roosevelt,
a sportsman in addition to all the other things he was, realized the values of
conservation, and persuaded by other conservationists like Gifford Pinchot,
head of the federal Division of Forestry, he helped initiate massive
conservation projects.
i.
The
Newlands Act of 1902 initiated irrigation projects for the western
states while the giant Roosevelt Dam, built on the Arizona River, was
dedicated in 1911.
3.
By
1900, only a quarter of the nation’s natural timberlands remained, so he set
aside 125 million acres, establishing perhaps his most enduring achievement as
president.
4.
Concern
about the disappearance of the national frontier led to the success of such
books like Jack London’s Call of the Wild and the
establishment of the Boy Scouts of America and the Sierra Club, a
member of which was naturalist John Muir.
5.
In
1913, San Francisco received permission to build a dam in Hetch Hetchy
Valley, a part of Yosemite National Park, causing much controversy.
i.
Roosevelt’s
conservation deal meant working with the big loggers and resource users, not
the small, independent ones.
X.
The
“Roosevelt Panic” of 1907
1.
TR
had widespread popularity (the “Teddy” bear), but conservatives branded him as
a dangerous rattlesnake, unpredictable in his Progressive moves.
2.
However,
in 1904, TR announced that he would not seek presidency in 1908, since he would
have, in effect, served two terms by then, thus defanging his power.
3.
In
1907, a short but sharp panic on Wall Street placed TR at the center of its
blame, with conservatives criticizing him, but he lashed back, and besides all,
the panic died down.
4.
In
1908, congress passed the Aldrich-Vreeland Act, which authorized
national banks to issue emergency currency backed by various kinds of
collateral.
i.
This
would lead to the momentous Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
XI.
The
Rough Rider Thunders Out
1.
In
the 1908 campaign, TR chose William Taft as his “successor,” hoping that the
corpulent man would continue his policies, and Taft easily defeated William
Jennings Bryan; a surprise came from Socialist Eugene V. Debs, who
garnered 420,793 votes.
2.
TR
left the presidency to go on a lion hunt, survived, and returned, still with
much energy.
i.
He
had established many precedents and had helped ensure that the new trusts would
fit capitalism and have healthy adult lives helping the American people.
3.
TR
protected against socialism, was a great conservationist, expanded the powers
of the presidency, shaped the progressive movement, launched the Square Deal, a
precursor to the New Deal that would come later, and opened American
eyes to the fact that America shared the world with other nations, so it
couldn’t be isolationist.
XII.
Taft:
A Round Peg in a Square Hole
1.
William
Taft was a mild progressive, quite jovial, quite fat, and passive, but he was
also sensitive to criticism and not as liberal as Roosevelt.
XIII.
The
Dollar Goes Abroad as Diplomat
1.
Taft
urged Americans to invest abroad, in a policy called “Dollar Diplomacy,”
which called for Wall Street bankers to sluice their surplus dollars into
foreign areas of strategic concern to the U.S., especially in the Far East and
in the regions critical to the security of the Panama Canal, or otherwise,
rival powers like Germany might weaken U.S. trade.
2.
In
1909, perceiving a threat to the monopolistic Russian and Japanese control of
the Manchurian Railway, Taft had Secretary of State Philander C. Knox
propose that a group of American and foreign bankers buy the railroads and turn
them over to China.
3.
Taft
also pumped U.S. dollars into Honduras and Haiti, whose economies were
stagnant, while in Cuba, the same Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and
Nicaragua, American forces were brought in to restore order after unrest.
XIV.
Taft
the Trustbuster
1.
In
his four years of office, Taft brought 90 suits against trusts.
2.
In
1911, the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the Standard Oil Company.
3.
After
Taft tried to break apart U.S. Steel, he increasingly became TR’s antagonist.
XV.
Taft
Splits the Republican Party
1.
To
lower the tariff and fulfill a campaign promise, Taft and the House passed a
moderately reductive bill, but the Senate, led by Senator Nelson W. Aldrich,
tacked on lots of upward revisions, and thus, when the Payne-Aldrich
Bill passed, it betrayed Taft’s promised, incurred the wrath of his party (drawn
mostly from the Midwest), and outraged many people.
i.
Taft
even called it “the best bill that the Republican Party ever passed.
2.
While
Taft did establish the Bureau of Mines to control mineral resources, his
participation in the Ballinger-Pinchot quarrel of 1910, in which
Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger opened public lands in
Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska to corporate development and was criticized by
Pinchot, who was then fired by Taft.
3.
In
the spring of 1910, the Republican Party was split between the Progressives and
the Old Guard that Taft supported, and Democrats emerged with a landslide in
the House.
i.
Socialist
Victor L. Berger was elected from Milwaukee.
XVI.
The
Taft-Roosevelt Rupture
1.
In
1911, the National Progressive Republican League was formed, with La
Follette as its leader, but in February 1912, TR began dropping hints that he
wouldn’t mind being nominated by the Republicans, his reason being that he had
meant no third consecutive term, not third term overall.
2.
Rejected
by the Taft supporters of the Republicans, TR became a candidate on the
Progressive ticket, shoving La Follette aside.
3.
In
the Election of 1912, it would be Theodore Roosevelt versus William H. Taft
versus the Democratic candidate, whoever that was to be… J
