Chapter 28: Progressivism and the Republican Roosevelt
Progressive Roots
 New reformists went back to the Greenback Labor Party of 1870’s, Populists
1890’s, because of the trusts
 Laissez-faire was out dated, business had gotten too big and society too complex
 Literary figures led the attack
o Henry Demarest Lloyd Wealth Against Wealth 1894
o Thorstein Veblen Theory of the Leisure Class 1899
o Jacob A Riis How the Other Half Lives 1890
 Strong socialist movement led by the new immigrants
Muckrakers
 Several magazines led the way in reform, investigational journalism, dug deeper
because they were trying to out scoop the competition
 Lincoln Steffens “The Shame of the Cities”
o Showed the alliance between big business and local governments
 Ida B. Tarbell published an expose on Standard Oil
 David G. Phillips “The Treason of the Senate” charged that 75 of the 90 senators
represented trusts not the people
 Ray Stannard Baker Following the Color Line 1908
 Upton Sinclair The Jungle
 Abuses about many other, social ills, adulterated medicine, food, political
corruption, etc
Political Progressivism
 Reformers were mainly middle class citizens- pressure from above (giant
corporations) and below (immigrant hordes and labor unions)
 Progressives two main goals:
o To use state power to curb the trusts
o To stem the socialist threat by generally improving the common person’s
conditions of life and labor
 Progressives pushed for direct primary elections and the referendum (placed laws
on the ballot for final approval from the people)
 Put a limit on the amount of money that candidates could spend on elections and
on the gifts that they could receive from corporations
 Constitutional amendment to use popular election of the sentors-17th Amendment
passed in 1913
 Progressives also supported the feminists
Progressivism in the Cities and States
 Many cities appointed a city manager to control civic affairs
o Attacked social problems-slumlords, juvenile delinquency, and
prostitution
 Progressivism also reached a state level
o Robert M. “Fighting Bob” La Follette-militant progressive Republican
leader-governor of Wisconsin, was able to return control to the people
from corrupt corporations and perfected a scheme fro regulating public
utilities
o Hiram W. Johnson- governor of California- broke the grip of the Southern
Pacific Railroad on CA politics-set up a political machine of his own
Progressive Women
 Key to progressive movement
 Saw the task of improving life in the factories as an extension of their roles as
wives and women
 Focused on moral and “maternal” issues
 Women’s Trade Union League and National Consumers League
 Florence Kelley
o Illinois’s first chief factory inspector and strong advocate of improving
factory conditions
o In 1899 she took control of the newly founded National Consumers
League
 Muller vs. Oregon 1908
o Louis D. Brandeis
o Called for special protection of women at the workplace
 Lochner vs. New York 1905
o Ruled against the 10 hour day for bakers
o This was overruled again in 1917
 Triangle Shirtwaist Company 1911 Fire; 146 workers died. Large outcry from
o Led to much needed and stronger laws regulating sweatshops
 Women went after the saloons, prohibition movement which went hand in hand
with anti prostitution movement
o WTCU Women’s Temperance Christian Union
o By 1914 nearly one half of the population lived in “dry” territory and
nearly three-fourths of the total are had outlawed saloons
o 1919-Eighteenth Amendment-Prohibition!
TR’s Square Deal for Labor
 TR feared that the public interest was being submerged by indifference-so he
decided that “everyone interests were his interests
 The Square Deal-for capital, labor and the public
o The 3 “Cs”
 Control of the corporations
 Consumer protection
 Conservation of the natural resources
o Coal miners strike in 1902 in Pennsylvania
 Miners were mostly illiterate immigrants
 Demanded 20% increase in pay and a reduction from 10 hour days
to 9 hour days
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As coal supplies decreased the nation was forced to close schools,
factories and hospitals
Roosevelt restored to “the stick” by threatening to send in federal
troops to operate the mines-they consented to arbitration and in the
end everything was hunky-dory.
 10% rise in pay and 9 hour work days
Roosevelt created the Department of Commerce and Labor in
1903
 Very helpful in curbing the trusts
TR Corrals the Corporations
 Elkins Act of 1903
o Gave fines to companies and RR that used rebates
 Hepburn Act of 1906
o Restricted the use of Free passes, RR used as bribes
 ICC was expanded to include express companies, sleeping car companies, and
pipelines
o It was also given teeth
 TR arbitrarily ruled which were good and evil trusts and went after the evil ones
o 1902 Northern Securities Company—RR holding company of Morgan’s
 Upheld by Supreme Courts and ordered to be dissolved
o Over 40 lawsuits against trusts including beef trust, sugar, fertilizer,
harvesters, etc.
o Busted the trusts to prove that government still reigned supreme—didn’t
really believe that they were that bad
Caring for the Consumers
 Europe banned American meat imports because it was tainted
 Upton Sinclair—The Jungle 1906
o Sinclair intended to help workers but got food controls
 Meat Inspection Act of 1906
o Meat shipped across state lines was inspected through the whole process
 Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906
o Prevent adulteration and mislabeling
Earth Control
 Americans were extremely wasteful in using natural resources
 Desert Land Act of 1877
o Arid land sold cheaply if owners would irrigate within 3 years
 Forest Reserve Act 1891
o Authorized the President to set aside public forests as natural parks
o 46 million acres in 1890
 Corey Act 1894
o Gave land to states if they agreed to irrigate and settle it
 Newlands Acts 1902
o Sold lands in West and used the money for water projects
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o Settlers paid the cost with their productive land, revolving fund
o Roosevelt Dam in Arizona was the first built
Roosevelt put over 126 million acres of forest in reserves
Conservation is seen as his lasting legacy
Preservationists lost out when dams were built in areas like Yosemite
Gifford Pinchot and others thought wilderness was wasteful but he and Roosevelt
worked to find a balance
o Multiple use resource management
 Land was managed by professionals
The Roosevelt Panic of 1907
 TR won reelection in 1904 but promised he wouldn’t run for a third term
 Panic hit like others with runs on banks, foreclosures, etc.
 TR was blamed for it because of his trust busting
 Panic helped push through much needed reform
o Aldrich-Vreeland Act 1908
 Allowed national banks to issue emergency currency
 Paved the way for the Federal Reserve of 1913
The Rough Rider Thunders Out
 Could have easily won another election but he opted not to run—kept his word
 TR chose Taft as his successor a mild progressive and his secretary of war
 The Democrats put up William Jennings Bryan again (3rd time)
 Taft won 321 to 162 7.6 to 6.4 million popular votes
 Eugene Debs a Socialist got almost a half million votes
 TR’s legacy
o Was seen as an enemy of capitalism but in fact he was in favor of most
and helped the capitalists survive longer
o Enlarged the powers of the President
o Helped the progressive movement and the liberal reform movements of
the 20th century
 William Howard Taft
o Very fat, popular, smart—graduated from Yale, lawyer, judge, couldn’t
take over after TR, TR led by force Taft couldn’t do that
The Dollar Goes Abroad as a Diplomat
 Dollar Diplomacy
o Using American investments to boost American political interests abroad
o Urged wall street to invest extra money in areas that the US had active
interests politically
o Far East, Panama Canal, etc.
o Dollar replaced the Big Stick
 Manchuria
o Japan and Russia controlled most of the area and had monopolies on the
RR that strangled the region
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o Taft tried to have American businessmen buy the RR and turn them over
to China, it blew up in his face
Caribbean
o Money into Haiti and Honduras in order to keep Europeans out
o Eventually sent troops into Cuba, Honduras, Dominican Republic to
establish order
o In Nicaragua the Americans started the rebellion and sent in troops to
sustain it, they stayed for 13 years
Taft the Trustbuster
 Became famous as a trustbuster-in 4 years brought up 90 suits against the trusts
 1911-Supreme Court dissolved the Standard Oil Company and Taft decided to
press an antitrust suit on U.S. Steel-made Roosevelt very angry
Taft Splits the Republican Party
 Taft had promised to reduce tariffs-called Congress into secession-tariffs were
reduced a little but Senator Nelson W. Aldrich tacked on hundreds of upward
tariff revisions
o Taft signed the Payne-Aldrich Bill-greatly angered the Republicans
because he broke his campaign promises
 Bureau of Mines established by Taft
o Ballinger-Pinchot quarrel-1910
 Richard Ballinger-Secretary of the Interior- was criticized by
Pinchot for opening the land
 Taft fired Pinchot on the grounds of insubordination- made the
conservationists and Roosevelt supporters angry
 Reformist Republicans vs. Taft and the Old Guard
o TR’s speech- “New Nationalism”
o Republicans lost in the 1910 election
The Taft-Roosevelt Rupture
 National Progressive Republican League-1911-Senator La Follette the republican
candidate-they didn’t think that Roosevelt would run with a third party
 TR decided to run when Taft got rid of “my policies”
o June of 1912-Roosevelt and Taft at the Chicago convention
 100 for Roosevelt vs. 250 for Taft
o Roosevelts ended up refusing to vote and Taft won