The Progressive Movement

The Populist Movement laid the foundation (review…)

• The Populist (or People's) Party platform in 1892 incorporated a host of popular reform ideas, including the following:

• Australian (or Secret) Ballot. Voting was still conducted publicly in many areas, potentially subjecting voters to pressure or recrimination by employers and landlords.

• Popular Election of U.S. Senators. As provided in the Constitution, senators were selected by the state legislatures, not by popular vote. It was believed that business lobbies exerted inordinate influence over the selection of these officials.

• Direct Democracy. The Populists urged the adoption of the initiative, referendum and recall as means to give the people a more direct voice in government.

• Banking Reform. The Populists believed that much of their economic hardship had been caused by bankers' unfair practices. They proposed to end the national banking system, a point of view not widely held.

• Government Ownership of the Railroads. Anger against the railroads for alleged price discrimination was so intense that the Populists advocated for federal appropriation.

• Graduated Income Tax. The Populists viewed the graduated income tax as a means to pry loose a portion of the tremendous wealth of the nation's most prosperous citizens. A "graduated" tax meant that the rate of taxation would increase as one's income increased.

• Free and Unlimited Coinage of Silver. The Populists raised the silver issue with the intent of increasing the nation’s money supply. This would most benefit farmers and others who were deep in debt.

1. What was the Gilded Age? Why did it have this name?

• It was the name given to the time period at the turn of the century by Mark Twain.

• It was an age characterized by– Problems experienced by

factory workers, farmers, immigrants and the growing underclass.

– Cities that had grown too fast and were experiencing problems with over crowdedness and corruption.

– Wealth that was increasingly concentrated in the hands of trusts, monopolies and other business combinations.

– Little to no government regulation.

2. Why was there a need for reform at the turn of the century?

• Industrialization had created many problems.

– Factory conditions characterized by long hours, harsh conditions and low pay.

– Wasteful use of natural resources.– Business combinations where the

wealth was concentrated in fewer hands.

• Growing cities magnified problems of poverty, disease, crime and corruption.

• The influx of immigrants had created more social unrest.

• A massive depression (1893-1897) convinced many that equal opportunity was out of reach of many Americans

• The Triangle Waste Factory Fire• Near closing time on Saturday afternoon, March 25,

1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Asch Building in the Triangle Waist Company. Within minutes, the quiet spring afternoon erupted into madness, a terrifying moment in time, disrupting forever the lives of young workers. By the time the fire was over, 146 of the 500 employees had died. The survivors were left to live and relive those agonizing moments. The victims and their families, the people passing by who witnessed the desperate leaps from ninth floor windows, and the City of New York would never be the same.

3. How did the nation become aware of this situation?

• muckrakers, name applied to American journalists, novelists, and critics who in the first decade of the 20th cent. attempted to expose the abuses of business and the corruption in politics. The term derives from the word muckrake used by President Theodore Roosevelt in a speech in 1906, in which he agreed with many of the charges of the muckrakers but asserted that some of their methods were sensational and irresponsible.

Quote from “The Jungle”by Upton Sinclair• Let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the pickle rooms, and he might have a

sore that would put him out of the world; all the joints in his fingers might be eaten by the acid, one by one. Of the butchers and floorsmen, the beef-boners and trimmers, and all those who used knives, you could scarcely find a person who had the use of his thumb; time and time again the base of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh against which the man pressed the knife to hold it. The hands of these men would be criss- crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them or to trace them. They would have no nails, – they had worn them off pulling hides; their knuckles were swollen so that their fingers spread out like a fan. There were men who worked in the cooking rooms, in the midst of steam and sickening odors, by artificial light; in these rooms the germs of tuberculosis might live for two years, but the supply was renewed every hour. There were the beef-luggers, who carried two-hundred-pound quarters into the refrigerator-cars; a fearful kind of work, that began at four o'clock in the morning, and that wore out the most powerful men in a few years. There were those who worked in the chilling rooms, and whose special disease was rheumatism; the time limit that a man could work in the chilling rooms was said to be five years. There were the wool-pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with their bare hands, till the acid had eaten their fingers off. There were those who made the tins for the canned meat; and their hands, too, were a maze of cuts, and each cut represented a chance for blood poisoning. Some worked at the stamping machines, and it was very seldom that one could work long there at the pace that was set, and not give out and forget himself and have a part of his hand chopped off. There were the "hoisters," as they were called, whose task it was to press the lever which lifted the dead cattle off the floor. They ran along upon a rafter, peering down through the damp and the steam; and as old Durham's architects had not built the killing room for the convenience of the hoisters, at every few feet they would have to stoop under a beam, say four feet above the one they ran on; which got them into the habit of stooping, so that in a few years they would be walking like chimpanzees. Worst of any, however, were the fertilizer men, and those who served in the cooking rooms. These people could not be shown to the visitor, – for the odor of a fertilizer man would scare any ordinary visitor at a hundred yards, and as for the other men, who worked in tank rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting, – sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard!

4. What was the Progressive Movement?

• The Progressive Era is a label applied to rather broad and sometime disparate attempts in the period from the 1900 through the end of World War I in 1918 to address economic and social reform. The movement included advocates in both the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as members of third parties focused on specific issues. The Progressive name derived from forward-thinking or "progressive" goals that its supporters sought to advance.

4. How did the Progressive Movement attempt to solve problems in regard to

• Political corruption?– New forms of urban government– Initiative, referendum and recall– Sixteenth Amendment

• Social problems?– Urban reforms– Prostitution and alcohol– Environmental conservation

• Problems in the workplace?

– Child labor, safety reforms and other improvement in the factory

– A “square deal” for labor unions

– Trust-Busting

• Women?– Moral reforms– nineteenth amendment

• Minorities?– Booker T. Washington– W.E.B. DuBois

Theodore Roosevelt

• Background and Election:– Upper class family from New York– Compensated for a sickly childhood by building up

strength and energy– Harvard University – later wrote many books– Mother and first wife died on the same day– Experiences in the west– Politics – Republican – NYC police commissioner– Undersecretary of the Navy– Spanish-American War – organized the Roughriders– Governor of New York– Selected as the running mate for William McKinley in

1900– Became the youngest president in history upon

McKinley’s assassination– Known for his youth, charisma and energy.

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)

• His Presidency:– “Big Stick” Diplomacy– Nobel Peace Prize– Trust-Buster – Standard Oil– Square Deal - Anthracite Coal Strike– Pure Food and Drug Act– Meat Inspection Act– Conservation Movement

• In general, T.R. changed the role of government and the role of the president.

William Howard Taft

• Background and Election:

– Governor of the Philippines– Friend and supporter of T.

Roosevelt– Chosen as Roosevelt’s

successor in 1908– Large size – created the

perception of being slow and lethargic

– Temperament better suited to being a judge rather than a president

– Only president to later serve as a Supreme Court Justice

William Howard Taft (1909-1913)• His Presidency:

– “Dollar Diplomacy”– “Busted” twice as many trusts in his one

term as Roosevelt did in two– Standard Oil v. U.S.– Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy– By the end of this term, Taft had

disappointed Roosevelt and the Progressives

• In general, Taft was a progressive reformer, but suffered from the perception of being a conservative.

Woodrow Wilson

• Background and Election:– Educator from New Jersey– Professor and then President of Princeton

University– Governor– Wilson was seen as being cerebral, very

idealistic and somewhat racist– 1912 Election:

• Republicans nominated Taft (led to the conservative party of today)

• Roosevelt, who was also seeking the nomination, bolted from the party and formed the Bull Moose Party (The Progressive Party)

• This split enabled Wilson, the Democrat, to win.

The 1912 Election

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)• His Presidency:

– Amendments 16, 17, 18 and 19 (next slide)– Federal Reserve Act– Federal Trade Commission– Clayton Antitrust Act– Great Migration– Harlem Renaissance– World War One– Bolshevik Revolution– Fourteen Points– Senate rejects Treaty of Versailles

• In general, Wilson is remembered for significant progressive reforms, leadership in World War One and the disaster of the Versailles Treaty.

The Progressive Amendments• Amendment 16 - Status of Income Tax Clarified. - 1913 • The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived,

without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

• Amendment 17 - Senators Elected by Popular Vote. - 1913 • The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by

the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

• When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

• This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

• Amendment 18 - Liquor Abolished. 1919. Repealed by Amendment 21 - 1933 • 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of

intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

• 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

• 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

• Amendment 19 - Women's Suffrage – 1920• The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United

States or by any State on account of sex.• Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.