AP/IB American History
Mr. Blackmon
Progressivism Lecture
I.
II.
Roots of Progressivism (The following long section is taken mostly from Richard
Hofstadter's The Age of Reform. If you assume that any point made is Hofstadter's, you will
be pretty safe.)
A.
Not a single group with unified aims
1.
Sometimes contradictory
2.
Sometimes "illiberal."
a.
There is a strong nativist streak running through Progressivism, as
illustrated by rising concerns over immigration and hostility to the
immigrants as voters. Also, Progressives really do not have much to
say to black Americans.
B.
Impulse to improve organization and the efficiency of the structures through which
society functions.
1.
High value given to scientific knowledge
2.
High value to expert opinions
3.
Utilization of social engineers to reorganize society
4.
Represents a break with Jacksonian Democratic tradition, and with the
general anti-intellectualism of American ideology.
C.
Impulse toward humanitarian reform and social justice.
1.
Settlement houses like Hull House (which was in partnership with the
University of Chicago) combine this impulse of compassion for the poor with
a commitment to progressive bureaucratic scientific study.
D.
Progressive sub-groups coalesce in the struggle to:
1.
fight corruption and inefficiency in government
2.
control or regulate big business
3.
provide welfare to urban poor.
The Hofstadter Thesis (page citations are to The Age of Reform)
A.
Helps explain the differences between Populists and Progressives and why
Progressives succeeded.
B.
Progressives are transformed Mugwumps
1.
Populism: overwhelmingly rural and provincial
2.
Progressivism: overwhelmingly urban, national, middle-class
C.
After 1900, Populism and Progressivism merge
1.
Progressives more concerned about labor and social welfare, municipal
reform, and consumer interests
2.
Tariff reform and financial legislation, RR and antitrust action required rural
support.
D.
A Digression: The Role of Third Parties in U.S. Political Life
1.
"Minor parties have been attached to some special idea or interest, and they
have generally expressed their positions through firm and identifiable
programs and principles. Their function has not been to win or govern, but
to agitate, educate, generate new ideas, and supply the dynamic element in
our political life. When a third party's demands become popular enough, they
are appropriated by one or both of the major parties and the third party
disappears. Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die"
AP/IB American History
Progressivism Lecture
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
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(Hofstadter, Reform 97) [Note: this passage has been used to create an AP
essay.}
"Rotten borough" system within which the U.S. legislative process
functioned until the principle of one-man/one vote, confronted urban
constituencies with disproportionately great rural power. (Hofstadter, Reform
116)
a.
In 1940, 19% of the population elected a majority of the Senate.
(Hofstadter, Reform 117)
Rural constituencies grow in political and economic organization
a.
Mechanization and growth of berry, fruit, and vegetable farming
using migrant labor tends to cause farmers to see themselves as
employers and erodes Populist identification with all laborers.
American businessmen, alarmed at fiery rhetoric of Populists, began to woo
farmers.
a.
Actively spread agricultural education and technology
b.
1902 American Society of Equity began to try to control
overproduction, which is the dominating weakness of American
agriculture.
c.
1919 Farm Bureau Federation is formed, a powerful representative of
the most conservative farmers.
Farm successes legislatively.
a.
Pure Food and Drug Act 1906
b.
Meat Inspection Act 1907
c.
Smith-Lever Act 1914 (agricultural education)
d.
Federal Farm Loan Act 1916
e.
Warehouse Act 1916
f.
Grain Standards Act 1916
g.
Cotton Futures Act 1916
h.
Rural Post Roads Act 1916
i.
Smith-Hughes Act 1917 (also agricultural education)(Hofstadter,
Reform 112-3)
"The climactic achievement of the farm lobby was to establish, as a goal of
national policy, the principle of parity--the concept that it is a legitimate end
of governmental policy to guarantee to one interest in the country a price
level for its products that would yield a purchasing power equal to what that
class had had during the most prosperous period in modern times, the socalled 'base period' of 1909-14." (Hofstadter, Reform 119)
Farmer's easier conditions
a.
Rise in prices due to increased world money supply (gold strikes in
Alaska, Australia, and South Africa, plus the cyanide process to
extract more gold from previously unprofitable ores) and a balancing
of world demand
(1)
1896-1909 wheat rises from $ .72/bu to $ .98/bu
(2)
1896-1909 corn rises from $ .21/bu to $ .57/bu
(3)
1896-1909 cotton rises from $ .06/lbs to $ .14/lbs
AP/IB American History
Progressivism Lecture
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(Hofstadter, Reform 110)
Back to the Mugwumps
1.
Why a reform movement during prosperity?
a.
Rise in prices: from 1897 to 1913, 35% inflation
b.
Just as falling prices from 1865-96 spurred agrarian discontent,
inflation discontented middle class, especially the new professionals.
c.
Coupled with a vigorous if small labor movement, the middle class
felt unrepresented. (Hofstadter, Reform 168)
2.
Startling increase in mergers between 1898-1904 (the result of long-standing
trends)
a.
of 318 trusts in 1904,
(1)
82, with a capitalization of $1,196,700,000 were formed
between before 1898
(2)
234, with a capitalization of $6,000,000,000 were formed
between 1898-1904
(a)
These include Standard Oil (John D. Rockefeller's
archetypal trust), U.S. Steel (formed by J. Pierpont
Morgan when Andrew Carnegie sold out and
retired), Amalgamated Copper, and Consolidated
Tobacco. (Hofstadter, Reform 169)
3.
"It is my thesis that men of this sort, who might be designated broadly as the
Mugwump type, were Progressives not because of economic deprivations but
primarily because they were victims of an upheaval in status that took place
in the united States during the closing decades of the 19th and early 20th
century. . . . Up to about 1870, the United States was a nation with a rather
broad diffusion of wealth, status, and power, in which the man of moderate
means, especially in many small communities, could command much
deference and exert much influence." (Hofstadter, Reform 135) These
Mugwumps had traditions of well-to-do well-educated, high-minded citizens
with strong roots to local communities. Industrialists were held to be
irresponsible, uneducated, rootless, and corrupt. (Hofstadter, Reform 140-1)
4.
The Mugwump of the 1880s was typically conservative economically and
politically
a.
Committed to laissez-faire
b.
Typical statesman was Grover Cleveland
c.
Critical of the capitalists and contemptuous of agrarian and urban
movements
d.
Hence, they were politically isolated. (Hofstadter, Reform 142-3)
5.
A second generation, growing up in the tumultuous '90s instead of the
optimistic '40s, builds political bridges that their parents could not have.
6.
Progressive leadership is overwhelmingly urban, middle-class, and nativeborn Protestant
7.
Hofstadter goes on to note that "Progressivism can be considered . . . as a
phase in the history of the Protestant conscience, a latter-day Protestant
revival. Liberal politics as well as liberal theology were both inherent in the
AP/IB American History
Progressivism Lecture
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G.
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response of religion to the secularization of society. No other major
movement in American political history . . . had ever received so much
clerical sanction." (Hofstadter, Reform 152)
8.
These young man, he argues, were able to understand and sympathize with
other disinherited groups.
This middle-class, urban, Protestant "Yankee" background not only explains the
driving force behind Progressivism, but also its limits
1.
"Progressive reform drew its greatest support from the more discontented of
the native Americans, and on some issues from the rural and small-town
constituencies that surrounded the great cities. The isolation of the
Progressive from the support of the most exploited sector of the population
was one of the factors that, for all humanitarianism, courage, and vision,
reduced the social range and the radical drive of his program and kept him
genteel, proper, and safe." (Hofstadter, Reform 185)
Where do the Progressives and the urban immigrant population of the New
Immigration clash? (recall my discussion of the Big City bosses in my handout on
Urbanization)
1.
"In politics, then, the immigrant was usually at odds with the reform
aspirations of the American Progressive. Together with the native
conservative and the politically indifferent, the immigrants formed a potent
mass that limited the range and achievements of Progressivism.
"The loyalty of immigrant voters to the bosses was one of the signal reasons
why the local reform victories were so short-lived. It would be hard to image
types of political culture more alien to each other than those of the Yankee
reformer and the peasant immigrant.
"The Yankee's idea of political action assumed a popular democracy with
wide-spread participation and eager civic interest. To him politics was the
business, the responsibility, the duty of all men. . . .
"The immigrant, by contrast, coming as a rule from a peasant environment
and from autocratic societies with strong feudal survivals, was totally
unaccustomed to the active citizens' role. He expected to be acted on by
government, not to be a political agent himself. To him, government meant
restrictions on personal movement, the arbitrary regulation of life, the
inaccessibility of law, and the conscription of the able-bodied. To him,
government was the instrument of the ruling classes, characteristically acting
in their interests, which were indifferent or opposed to his own. Nor was
government in his eyes an affair of abstract principles and rules of law: it
was the actions of particular men with particular powers. Political relations
were not governed by abstract principles; they were profoundly personal. .
..
"The immigrant, in short, looked to politics not for the realization of high
AP/IB American History
Progressivism Lecture
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principles, but for concrete and personal gains and he sought these gains
through personal relations [the big city boss]. . . . The immigrant wanted
humanity, not efficiency . . . ." (Hofstadter, Reform 182-5)
Ideological Corrossives: Social Darwinism vs Reform Darwinism
A.
Eric Goldman, in Rendezvous With Destiny, coined the term "reform Darwinism"
and provided the analysis that follows. My lecture lifts his argument out. Goldman's
analysis is brilliant, as is his writing.
B.
It is my growing conviction that Social Darwinism is not only an important ideology
for U.S. history, but even more important for modern history. It is almost uniformly
baneful in its effects. Millions of human beings have been immolated on the altar of
"survival of the fittest."
C.
The reformers find that their attempts to push reform through are blocked by a
conservative ideology that denies any conceptual framework for meaningful and/or
beneficial change. Since the ideas which human hold to be true determines the
actions which they take, then the reformers must come up with 'intellectual
corrossives to dissolve the steel chain of ideas.'
D.
The Conservative Case
1.
The Natural Right of Liberty
a.
Democracy is founded upon "self-evident" or "natural" rights, the
chief of which is 'liberty"--"the liberty of a man to acquire and keep
property without the interference of government, and the liberty of a
workingman to deal directly with his employer without the
interference of a union." (Goldman 67)
2.
The Laws of Economics
a.
"The Ricardian 'law' explained that the income of workers always
tended to the subsistence level because a raise in wages simply meant
that the poor had more children, who ate up the additional income.
The Malthusian 'law' explained that enough food for everyone was an
impossibility since population invariably increased more rapidly than
the food supply." (Goldman 67)
(1)
The economists referred to are both Englishmen and pioneers
in the discipline.
(a)
David Ricardo
(b)
Thomas Malthus
3.
The Laws of Jurisprudence
a.
"law was law . . . and the judicial process included no personal
opinions on the part of the judge." (Goldman 68)
4.
The Laws of Biology, Psychology, and Morals
a.
"The mind and emotions were assumed to be fixed structures, readymade in the womb, which functioned regardless of the environment.
Some people were born to success and goodness, others to squalor
and sin . . . Progressives might have the laudable desires to lift the
standard of living of Negroes and immigrants and to make women
partners in the democratic process, but the progressives were fighting
genes. . . . Negroes and women were created intellectually inferior
AP/IB American History
Progressivism Lecture
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and morally weaker. Immigrants from southern or eastern Europe .
. . were inherently lacking in that 'instinct for liberty' which was the
basis of democracy. The instinct had appeared first in the primitive
Teutonic forests and spread from there as a heritage of the 'AngloSaxon race' Because it was hereditary, it could never be acquired by
those who were not 'Anglo-Saxon.'" (Goldman 68-9)
5.
The Laws of Theology
a.
Conservative theology emphasized two ideas particularly:
(1)
Man is a free moral agent
(2)
God has determined the success or failure of each of His
children. (Goldman 69)
b.
Thus, Henry Ward Beecher (who was paid $40,000 per year by his
admiring congregation, despite his affairs with congregants) writes
that a man could support a wife and 5 children on $1.00 a day--a
typical wage--if only he would not smoke or drink beer. 'The man
who cannot live on bread and water is not fit to live.'" (Goldman
69)
(1)
Poverty is a sign of moral weakness or sin.
c.
Russell Conwell wrote his "Acres of Diamonds" sermon and
preached it to 13,000,000 people (he delivered it 6,000 times),
arguing that money making was holy because money could be spent
in a good cause. (Goldman 70)
d.
The liberal theology of the Social Gospel is a revulsion against this
modern pharisseeism
6.
Common characteristic: ". . . they were absolute ideas, assumed to exist apart
from the material world, with no relationship to time, place, or the special
interests of individuals or groups." (Goldman 70) Since these ideas are
absolute, they are universally valid and unchallengeable.
7.
Social Darwinism reenforces this conservative philosophy by wrapping it
with the aura of scientific proof: "According to [Herbert] Spencer's 'Social
Darwinism.' society, too, was an organism that evolved by the survival of the
fittest. Existing social institutions were therefore the 'fittest' way of doing
things and businessmen who bested their competitors had thereby proved
themselves 'the fittest' to enjoy wealth and power. No wise man would try to
interfere with this evolutionary process by social legislation. At best, the
social legislation would not work, as it was intended to work, and in any
event, it would have baleful results." (Goldman 71)
The Corrossives of Reform Darwinism
1.
Darwin's theory of Evolution postulates "continuous evolution in response
to the environment." There is therefore a fundamental contradiction in the
Conservatives' argument which the reformers exploit. "In the name of
environmentalism, they [the Conservatives] advocated ideas which they
called timeless and which were therefore independent of any environment,
past or present." (Goldman 72) The Reformers had only to demand a
genuine Darwinism, where change was continuous and inevitable, and to
AP/IB American History
Progressivism Lecture
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3.
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insist that the economic environment was of fundamental importance.
The economic environment
a.
Economic interpretation of events was not invented in the 1900s.
b.
Historically, Americans rarely use economic interpretation as an
analytical tool, but as a weapon against ideological opponents.
(1)
Jefferson, for example, attributes special virtues to small
farmers and a tendency to corruption to urban dwellers. His
economic interpretation is therefore a justification for the
creation and maintenance of a republic of small farmers--a
weapon to use against Hamilton. (Goldman 74)
c.
Making money has always been an achievement in the U.S. and those
who are materially successful have always enjoyed status.
d.
But condemnation of "mere money-making" is equally deeply
embedded in the American consciousness.
(1)
The Judaeo-Christian tradition distinguishes between spiritual
and material values, and clearly values the spiritual more
highly.
(a)
"No man can serve two masters: for either he will
hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to
the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God
and mammon." (Mt 6:24)
(b)
"And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good
Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have
eternal life? . . . Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be
perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and
come and follow me. But when the young man heard
that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great
possessions. Then Jesus said unto his disciples . . . It
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
(Mt 19:16, 21-24)
(2)
The United States is too intensely Christian in its origins and
social atmosphere to give itself wholly to Mammon. Beecher
and Conwell might laud making money, but they felt the
necessity of relating money making to some higher goal.
(Goldman 75)
e.
The Reformers can use the economic interpretation to say to the
Conservative, "Your philosophy, economics, politics,
anthropology, everything you call Truth, is a rationalization of
your economic interests." (Goldman 75)
Henry George is the earliest use of Reform Darwinism
Young scholars and college professors trained in Germany, which is under
the dominating influence of Hegel, and who settled at crucial centers such as
Johns Hopkins, Chicago, Wisconsin, and Columbia, provide the intellectual
AP/IB American History
Progressivism Lecture
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underpinning of the reform movement.
a.
Note that Hegel's dialectical philosophy (thesis, antithesis, synthesis)
with Truth evolving perpetually as the result of the dialectical conflict
provides the intellectual framework for Darwinism as well as
Marxism.
Corrossives in Religion: the Social Gospel
a.
Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, 1907
(1)
Argues that Christianity does not affirm any unchanging
economic system
(2)
Argues that prevailing Christianity was simply a
rationalization of irresponsible wealth
(3)
Writes "the God that answereth by low food prices, let Him
be God." (Goldman 84)
b.
Reform Judaism is enunciated by American rabbis
(1)
The Pittsburgh Declaration, Point * states "We deem it our
duty to participate in the great task of modern times, to solve,
on the basis of justice and righteousness, the problems
presented by the contrasts and evils of the present
organization of society." (Goldman 84)
(2)
One notes that after the turn of the century, at about the time
that the number of American Jews is increasing sharply as a
result of the New Immigration, that Jews have been
prominent among American reformers. As an oppressed
minority, Jews are unusually sensitive to all forms of
oppression.
c.
John Ryan, a Catholic priest who uses the Pope Leo XIII's encyclical
Rerum Novarum , which declares, "a small number of very rich men
have been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little better
than slavery itself . . . No practical solution of this question will ever
be found without the assistance of religion and the church." (Goldman
85)
Corrossives in Constitutional Theory
a.
The Turner Thesis or Frontier Thesis, which was first proposed by
Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 in his paper, "The Significance of
the Frontier in American History," and which states that the frontier
rather than any inherited ideas from Europe, is the determinative
factor in the development of social, political, and economic
democracy in America. Turner explicitly rejects the "germ-theory"
that democracy is an inheritance of the Germanic (ie Anglo-Saxon)
tribes. He focusses on a physical environment.
(1)
Some of the ways in which the frontier influenced America
include:
(a)
Fostered Social Equality by offering cheap land and
by emphasizing self-reliance; the frontier placed value
on who one was, not who one's ancestors were.
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(b)
(2)
(3)
Fostered Political Democracy, which is derived from
social democracy; Westerners hated special
distinctions; the West produced universal manhood
suffrage, woman suffrage, direct election of Senators,
and the secret ballot.
(c)
Fostered Nationalism because Westerners wanted
cheap land from the federal government, as well as
internal improvements, and protection from Indians.
(d)
Fostered Optimism, because unlimited resources led
to a belief that the future was rosy.
(e)
Fostered Economic Independence, since our huge
internal market and enormous natural resources meant
that we did not have to rely on European products.
(f)
Provided a Safety Valve for Eastern Factory Workers,
who could flee intolerable conditions and become an
independent Western farmer
(g)
Encouraged Invention, since the presence of a
growing West intensified the labor shortage, and
placed a premium on labor saving machines.
(h)
Fostered Wasteful Agriculture, because our natural
resources were so rich that no one imagined that they
could be depleted.
Effects of the "closed frontier" after 1890:
(a)
With no more "safety valve," so that
labor/management conflicts will intensify.
(b)
Immigrants could no longer easily acquire farms; they
would throng into the cities and compete for jobs,
leading native-born workers to demand restrictions on
immigration.
(c)
With a closed frontier, our natural resources are no
longer unlimited; conservation will now be a
necessity.
(d)
With the national market now finite instead of
expanding, industry and agriculture must seek
new markets, leading to Imperialism. (Gordon 1967) Albert J. Beveridge is an outstanding spokesman
for this point of view, as is Theodore Roosevelt. The
modern historian William Appleman Williams has
built his career upon this thesis: U.S. foreign policy
is built upon imperialism.
The Turner Thesis, while immensely influential, has been
largely discredited by modern scholarship, at least in the
sweeping terms with which Turner wrote. Turner, in fact,
produced little careful research in his long career. While the
frontier environment is certainly extremely important, it is not
AP/IB American History
Progressivism Lecture
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c.
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the only factor. Degler, in his first chapter of Out of Our Past,
(all of you, of course, remember that chapter as if you had
read it yesterday) points out that the presence of abundant
land and a scarcity of labor (rather than a scarcity of land and
an abundance of labor, as in Europe) doomed efforts to
transplant feudalistic European ways--as with South Carolina.
However, he also points out that Imperial Russia possessed an
unlimited frontier, and that that did not produce democracy.
South America after the Conquest likewise possessed an
abundance of land and resources. The cultural baggage-institutions, expectations, values, traditions, etc.--which were
brought to the New World are also very important. There is
a physical environment, an economic environment, a political
environment, a social environment, and an intellectual
environment, all of which interact.
(4)
The Turner Thesis turned thoughts away from the
Constitution as an abstraction and focussed on economic
factors in the growth of democracy. (Goldman 108-9)
Algie Simons (a student of Turner's and of Richard Ely) writes Social
Forces in American History (1911) anticipated Charles Beard in his
economic interpretation of history: "The American Revolution was
'one battle of a great world-wide struggle between contending social
classes . . . . The industrial life of the colonies had reached the stage
where it was hampered and restricted by its connection England. '
The Civil War, far from being a struggle over the moral issue of
slavery, was basically a drive by the 'capitalist class' of the North to
free itself from the rule of Southern agrarians, and the years after the
war brought the politics of 'dollarocracy.' With special emphasis,
Simons applied his economic interpretation to the Constitution. 'The
organic law of this nation was formulated in secret session by a body
called into existence through a conspiratory trick, and was forced
upon a disenfranchised people by means of a dishonest
apportionment in order that the interest of a small body of wealthy
rulers might be served." (Goldman 110)
J. Allen Smith (who was fired from his job as a college professor for
announcing that he was voting for Bryan) writes The Spirit of
American Government (1907): "Laws, institutions, and systems of
government are in a sense artificial creations, and must be judged in
relation to the ends which they have in view. They are good or bad
according as they are well or poorly adapted to social needs."
(Goldman 112-113) The Constitution, he argues, was just such an
artificial creation, written by a particular group of men with a
particular economic end in mind.
Charles Beard writes An Economic Interpretation of the
Constitution in 1913, which dominates scholarly thought for 50
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years.
(1)
The Beard Thesis argues that since "substantially all of the
merchants, money lenders, security holders, manufacturers,
shippers, capitalists, and financiers and their professional
associates are to be found on one side in support of the
Constitution, and substantially all or the major portion of the
opposition came from the non-slaveholding farmers and the
debtors, our fundamental law was not the product of an
abstraction known as 'the whole people,' but of a group of
economic interests which must have expected beneficial
results from its adoption?" (Beard 227)
(2)
The Beard Thesis is more than just a work of scholarship; it
is a weapon with which to change the Constitution. (Goldman
116-7)
Corrossives in Economics
a.
Richard Ely, teaching at Johns Hopkins and then Wisconsin, argued
that the natural laws of economics was just the rationalization of
greed, and called for a new economics with reform by the
government. (Goldman 86-7)
b.
Thorstein Veblen follows with The Theory of the Leisure Class in
1899. "Real Darwinism, Veblen argued,would have men and their
institutions in a continuous flux, changing each other under no law
except the lack of laws. It would show that business enterprises, far
from operating under laws of any kind, was a chaotic clawing for
profit. Hence no one need have the slightest fear that the clumsy
hand of human intervention would disturb some principle. 'A reform
adopted . . . is a way of supplying a measure of order to a system that
is characterized by disorder.'" (Goldman 89)
Corrossives in Anthropology
a.
Richard Dugdale concluded a pioneering study in 1877 of a single
family in New York in which crime, disease, poverty, and prostitution
had run for 75 years. He concluded that "'The tendency of heredity
is to produce an environment which perpetuates heredity: thus,
the licentious parent makes an example which greatly aids in fixing
habits of debauchery in the child. The correction is a change of
environment.'" (Goldman 93)(emphasis added)
b.
Franz Boas attacks the concept of race by a study of immigrants. He
concentrated on measuring the cephalic indices (length of the skull
divided by width)of two groups: "round-headed" Eastern European
Jews and "long-headed" Sicilians. Common attitudes regarded these
groups as hopelessly non-"Anglo-Saxon." The characteristic he chose
to study was regarded as an immutable, genetic racial characteristic.
Boas discovered that the cephalic index does indeed change in a new
environment: For Russian Jews, parents whose cephalic index
averaged 83 had children who averaged 81; Sicilians whose index
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averaged 78 had children who averaged 80. Not only did this
supposedly unchangeable quality change, but it changed in the
direction of a uniform type. Since the genetic inheritance had not
altered, the environment must explain the change. Racial
characteristics are therefore fluid, not stable. (Goldman
97)(emphasis added)
Corrossives in Jurisprudence
a.
Ben Lindsey , a Denver juvenile judge, concluded that "rarely, if ever,
was a child innately 'good' or 'bad.' Children were made good or bad
by their economic environments and once they had turned bad, make
worse or better by the new environment." (Goldman 94) Lindsey
made juvenile offenders wards of the state and avoided the concept
of punishment. He therefore is the pioneer of the entire modern
concept of juvenile justice.
b.
Clarence Darrow, perhaps America's most successful trial lawyer,
argued, "'There is no such thing as crime as the word is generally
understood. If every man, woman, and child in the world had a
chance to make a decent, fair, honest living, there would be no jails,
and no lawyers, and no courts." (Goldman 96) One notes the great
distance from traditional Christianity in that attitude; in the orthodox
Christian view, all men are depraved; the most fundamental roots of
sin lie in the conditions of the human heart and not in the
environment.
c.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. writes the pivotal The Common Law in
1881, which gradually makes its impact felt. The attitude toward the
law expressed here is the modern view: "'The felt necessities of the
time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public
policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges
share with their fellow men, have had a good deal more to do than the
syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed.
The law embodies the story of a nation's development . . . . and it
cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries
of a book of mathematics.'" (Goldman 104)
d.
Louis D. Brandeis wins Muller v. Oregon in 1908 to establish this
view in U.S. law. The son of German Jewish immigrants, Brandeis
stormed through Harvard Law School, and established himself as the
premier corporate lawyer in the nation. By 1908, he was financially
independent. The Muller case involved his defense of Oregon's 10
working day for women. Brandeis' brief to the Court included just
two pages of legal argument (the state clearly has police power to
protect the general interest; a 10-hour day law was an exercise of
police power; the issue is whether such an exercise was justified--a
very simple argument) 102 pages of statistics and sociology,
demonstrating beyond doubt to a very conservative Court that a 10
hour day was necessary to the general welfare of the people of
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Oregon. The Court's favorable decision means that henceforth, the
meaning of the law must evolve in relation to social needs.
(Goldman 106-7)
10.
Corrossives in Philosophy
a.
William James argued that prevailing thought in psychology and
philosophy ignored the central Darwinian meaning that nothing is
absolutely distinct or fixed. (Goldman 120)
b.
John Dewey helps to develop pragmatism (in America, it has usually
been a term of approbation to say that someone was 'pragmatic.') in
1903: "A valid conception of thought assumed continuous evolution
and depended on environment. Ideas could and should change to give
men what they sought; ideas would give men their goals when the
ideas called for creating an environment favorable to the achievement
of the goals." (Goldman 122)
c.
Pragmatism provides a philosophical basis for attacking all absolute
ideas.
d.
The weakness of pragmatism will be pointed out by Herbert Croly (cf
below), "From whence comes our morality?"
The Muckrakers
A.
The next several sections will still use Hofstadter and Goldman but contains
materially generally available in any college level text. The ones I used the most
when composing this were Blum, Garraty, Current, and Bailey. I have probably
forgotten all of the books which have influenced me on this lecture. Hofstadter's
American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It should receive special
mention.
B.
The first muckraking articles were published in McClure's Atlantic Monthly,
headlined by S.S. McClure's editorial in 1903. The term was given them by
Theodore Roosevelt, and was not meant to be complimentary [any farmer understood
very well precisely what was meant by "muck"] but adopted with pride by the
journalists themselves.
1.
McClure's editorial argued that corruption involves us all, and we have only
ourselves to blame. Note the Protestant moral fervor: I am my brother's
keeper.
C.
Leading Muckrakers:
1.
Lincoln Steffens--The Shame of the Cities
2.
Ida M. Tarbell--History of Standard Oil
3.
Frank Norris--The Octopus (fiction)
4.
Ray Stannard Baker--Following the Color Line
5.
Upton Sinclair--The Jungle (fiction)
D.
The Muckrakers contributed the idea of the socially responsible reporter
1.
Brought specific focus to social problems
2.
Journalistic equivalent of literary realism
3.
Appealed to responsibility, guilt and indignation
4.
Intent is to expose "reality" in all its fullness, subject it to moral exhortation,
and convince citizens to do something about it.
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5.
V.
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Starts a long, powerful, and honorable tradition in American journalism. Cf.
for example Edward R. Murrow's epochal expose on migrant workers. Sixty
Minutes is a direct descendant.
6.
An example of the Protestant state of mind:
a.
Evil doing is found everywhere, even among respectable people
b.
Evil is a breaking of the law and we need the right laws enforced by
the right men
c.
Appeal to universal responsibility and an imputation of personal
guilt--on trusts, bosses, also on liquor and prostitution (Hofstadter
201)
The Progressive Mind
A.
Conflicting attitudes
1.
Some advocated
a.
public ownership of streetcar lines, waterworks, etc.
b.
prohibition of alcoholic beverages
c.
anti-immigrant and nativist
d.
mostly ignored Black Americans
Reforming the Political System
A.
Political corruption seen as the root of many evils
1.
Steffens' series on St. Louis, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Philadelphia
in 1902 helped focus attention
2.
Bitterly attacked the big city "bosses," of whom the most famous was
William Marcy "Boss" Tweed of New York
a.
Note that Tweed himself is from the Gilded Age, and is driven out of
office by Samuel J. Tilden with the help of Thomas Nast, the
cartoonist (the man who also gave us our image of Santa Claus).
Tweed was arrested in Spain by a policeman who recognized him
from a Nast cartoon.
B.
Municipal Socialism
1.
Samuel "Golden Rule" Jones of Toledo
2.
Tom Johnson of Cleveland
3.
Hazen Pingree of Detroit
4.
Seth Low and John P. Mitchell of New York
5.
Joseph Folk of St. Louis
C.
Urban political charters
1.
Home rule charters to free cities from legislative oversight
2.
City Commissioner Plan or Galveston Plan (after the Galveston Hurricane)
which established government by a joint commission with responsibilities
clearly laid out.
3.
City Manager Plan or Dayton Plan (after the Dayton, Ohio Flood) which has
the city commission hire a professional manager to run the city. This is the
form of city government used by Metro in Miami.
D.
State Reform
1.
Bosses were usually entrenched in state political machines, not just the local
level. In order to clean up the cities, it became necessary to expand their
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efforts to the state level.
2.
Robert "Fighting Bob" LaFollette and the "Wisconsin Idea."
a.
Believed that boss rule was based on misinformation and that
education could break their power.
b.
Overhauled the state of Wisconsin, first as governor and then as
Senator
c.
Pushed through direct primaries and a corrupt practices act in
Wisconsin
d.
Utterly devoted to honest government
e.
Utilized a "brain trust" from the University of Wisconsin to provide
scientific answers to the ills of modern society
f.
Used his patronage effectively, demanded unswerving loyalty.
g.
LaFollette is totally honest and incorruptible, driven by a fiery sense
of moral indignation; he is an Old Testament prophet in modern
guise. He is also cantankerous and tends to personalize issues. He
and Theodore Roosevelt (who shares the same fault) have a falling
out for that reason.
Woman Suffrage
A.
The achievement of woman suffrage is one of Progressivism's great achievements
B.
Failure of the XIII, XIV, and XV Amendments to grant women the vote split the
feminist movement.
1.
American Women's Suffrage Association limited its aims to achieving the
vote.
2.
National Women's Suffrage Association, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Susan B. Anthony, is more radical and pushes for a wider range of
reforms. It takes a partisan stance, and places the immediate interests of
women first.
C.
Feminists prior to the turn of the century are handicapped by Victorian sexual mores,
particularly the image of woman's purity (the Virgin Mary vs. Eve the Temptress)
1.
Ex. is opposition to birth control except by continence
D.
Darwinist trap: Feminists are tempted to use the argument that the female personality
was inherently, not culturally, different, and that women were morally superior to
men; woman suffrage would therefore help elevate the moral tone of government.
This argument had short term benefits.
1.
Trap: Such an argument gives up the principle of equality.
E.
National American Women's Suffrage Association
1.
Formed in 1890, the NAWSA is a merger of the AWSA and the NWSA
2.
Led by Carrie Chapman Catt
3.
Top priority was to win the right to vote
a.
Took a state by state approach, and won the right to vote in 4 Western
states by 1896
4.
After 1911, working class women begin agitating in large numbers
5.
Shift to the national level, with the Congressional Union lobby, led by Alice
Paul
Progressive Amendments
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A.
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Progressivism sparks a major wave of Constitutional amendments. Each represents
the culmination of lengthy campaigns
1.
Amendment XVI: permits a federal income tax; a step in the direction of
equalizing the tax burden and moving away from regressive taxes; ratified
1913
2.
Amendment XVII: provides for direct election of Senators, abandoning the
original system by which Senators were chosen by the state legislature (which
made it very much easier for small power groups to control the Senator).
Ratified in 1913
3.
Amendment XVIII: Prohibition; the manufacture, sale, transportation,
importation, or exportation of intoxicating liquors is prohibited. A disastrous
attempt at social control which tends to widen the breach between urban and
rural Americans. Ratified in 1919.
4.
Amendment XIX: Universal woman suffrage. Ratified in 1920.
Social and Economic Reforms
A.
"Gas and water socialism" in cities--gain control of public utilities, a major source
of political corruption
B.
Some victories
1.
minimum wage in Toledo
2.
tenement house law in New York
3.
reduction of child labor, with limits on age, hours and dangerous occupations
C.
Federal action does not materialize or is declared unconstitutional by an extremely
conservative Supreme Court.
1.
Lochner v. New York 1905 is an example of giving XIV Amendment an
extreme laissez-faire interpretation. It voided a law restricting hours in
bakeshops to 60 hrs per week, "stating that the right of a person to make
contracts in relation to his business was part of the liberty of the individual
protected by the Fourteenth Amendment." (Swisher 105) Oliver Wendell
Holmes Jr's wrote in dissent: "This case is decided upon an economic
theory . . . . The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert
Spencer's Social Statics . . . . A constitution is not intended to embody
a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic
relation of the citizen to the state or of laissez faire." (Swisher 109)
2.
Hammer v. Degenhart 1918 struck down on laissez faire and states' rights
grounds a law restricting the interstate transport and sale of the products of
child labor. Future attempts to restrict child labor by taxing were also
defeated by the Court. This case is reversed in 1941 in the New Deal era. Do
not let anyone pretend that Supreme Court precedents are set in concrete.
(Swisher 110-1)
3.
Adkins v. Childrens' Hospital 1923 reverses a minimum wage law passed
by Congress for the District of Columbia. Chief Justice William Howard
Taft dissented. This case is reversed in 1931. (Swisher 118-9)
D.
New York Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire 1911
1.
Employer had locked the fire escapes to prevent the workers, all women,
from taking breaks.
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Unable to escape, 146 women died. Many of them threw themselves off the
building to escape the fire. These were not middle-class, native American
women, but poor immigrant women.
3.
National outrage spawns an investigation
a.
Tammany Hall Democrats Robert Wagner and Al Smith spearhead
the drive, and form the beginnings of a bridge between Progressive
reformers and the immigrant voter over a common issue: simple
humanity. The Progressives will remain too morally involved to
utilize this opening, but Franklin Roosevelt, who is less of a moral
crusader and more of a pragmatist, will build firm ties to big city
machines.
4.
The result are laws requiring factory inspections, pension plans, and accident
insurance, which are accepted by most manufacturers as a means of
regularizing matters.
E.
Conservative defense: The Supreme Court
1.
Conservatives argue that regulation denies freedom of contract
2.
Lochner Bakeshop case in 1905, which attempted to regulate hours for
women, the Court rules that women should get no special privileges.
3.
Muller v. Oregon in 1908 however reverses this (cf above) and establishes
the right of the states to protect the weaker members of society by special
legislation..
F.
Wisconsin--under the leadership of Robert M. LaFollette
1.
RR commission
2.
state graduated income tax
3.
state tax commission
4.
state regulation of insurance companies
5.
enforcement of labor legislation
6.
conservation commission led by Charles Van Hise of the University of
Wisconsin.
G.
New Jersey--under the leadership of Woodrow Wilson
1.
state public utility commission with power to fix rates and set standards
2.
food inspection laws
3.
attacks on pro-business laws that had given New Jersey the nickname,
"Mother of Trusts"
H.
New York
1.
Charles Evans Hughes pushes through a comprehensive overhaul of the
insurance industry.
I.
Weakness in all of this is that piecemeal state regulation was not adequate for an
increasingly complex society. There was no choice but to seek solutions at the
federal level.
Theodore Roosevelt
A.
At the very least, TR is a "near-great" President. This course tends to undervalue him
because it is structured so that his foreign policy achievements are taught separately
from his domestic achievements. Furthermore, his importance to the evolution of the
Presidency (a Political Science issue) rivals Andrew Jackson, regardless of whether
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one approves or disapproves of his programs.
1.
TR is the first strong President since Lincoln. Lincoln and TR are giants, the
ones in between are pygmies.
A man of enormous dynamism and vitality. TR is amazingly versatile and
accomplished--exceeded among American Presidents only by Jefferson. His personal
aggressiveness is exceeded only by Jackson (yet he deservedly won a Nobel Peace
Prize). He is an exceptionally interesting personality, if not always an admirable one.
His strengths far outweigh his weaknesses.
1.
Born of a well-to-do family
2.
sickly youth
3.
self-made athlete; he became an athlete as the result of strenuous efforts in
a home gym
4.
attended Harvard in 1880
5.
member of the New York assembly where his reforming zeal, biting tongue,
and utter incorruptibility made enemies among the conservatives
6.
moved to the Civil Service Commission where he continued to make enemies
among conservatives
7.
moved to New York Police Commissioner, where he strove to wipe out
police corruption, which made him exceedingly unpopular among politicians.
8.
kicked upstairs to Assistant Secretary of the Navy (where he took advantage
of the illness of the Secretary to leave orders for Dewey to seize Manila upon
the outbreak of war with Spain)
9.
Resigned to form a volunteer cavalry regiment, the Rough Riders (which was
not given them by the prostitutes of Tampa) and becomes a war hero (their
exploits are grossly exaggerated).
10.
elected Governor of New York on the basis of his war record and promptly
steps on a lot of toes.
11.
kicked upstairs to Vice President for William McKinley, where men like
Roscoe Conkling thought he could do no more harm. Then McKinley is
assassinated.
12.
A historian of note, specializing in naval history; his first book was written
at Harvard. Few Presidents have known as much history as TR.
13.
a rancher, who earned the respect of his hard-bitten cowboys by his
willingness to work. Engages in gunfights with rustlers.
14.
a world renowned naturalist, a scientific discipline that involved today's
disciplines of zoology, botany and ecology. Other scientists regarded TR as
an authority on North American wildlife. His reputation is truly world-wide;
upon leaving the Presidency, he was invited to lecture at European
universities--in natural history, not government, politics, or history. He is an
avid outdoorsman and hunter. His hunting is not, however, random
slaughter. His safari to Africa brought back a large number of specimens for
study (at a time when the herds were still enormous). The modern
conservation movement in the United States stems from Theodore Roosevelt;
I believe it is his greatest legacy to posterity as well as the issue closest to his
heart.
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15.
C.
D.
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TR, like Lincoln, is not static. His Presidency gradually moves to the left; his
career after the White House steadily moves to the left even further.
16.
At heart, however, TR is profoundly conservative in
the strict sense of the term. He believed that if
meaningful reform did not occur within American
society, then a revolutionary upheaval would sweep
away democracy and capitalism both.
TR incurred
the bitter hatred of Big Business (in much the same
way, and for the same reasons that his cousin, FDR
incurred even more bitter hatred) but his profound
conviction is that if the legitimate demands and
needs of the mass of the people are not addressed
from within capitalism, then the masses would turn
elsewhere. TR is one of the reasons why Marxism
never was significant in the U.S., and why Marx is
wrong. Marx gave capitalism no capacity for selfreform.
a.
Motives were a sincere interest in the welfare of the victims of
industrialization and a desire for a more orderly and rational society,
plus a fear that neglect would invite social disintegration. (Hofstadter
238)
b.
"If the Socialist said that the growing combinations of capital
were natural products of social evolution and that the challenge
they represented to democracy must be met by expropriating
the owners, the typical Progressive was only spurred all the
more to find ways of limiting or regulating monopoly within a
capitalist framework, when the Socialist said that the
grievances of the people could be relieved only under Socialism,
the typical Progressive became the more determined to find
ways of showing that these grievances were remediable under
capitalism." (Hofstadter 240)
Early strategy
1.
Had no pre-arranged plan upon becoming President
2.
Acutely aware that he had to create an independent power base if he wished
to be elected on his own. TR proves to be an adept politician.
3.
Early program is cautious
a.
Uses executive power to curb trusts because he cannot obtain
legislation in Congress
b.
Gives more power to the Interstate Commerce Commission
c.
Begins his campaign for conservation
d.
Works to get re-elected.
Program
1.
Newlands Reclamation Act 1902--money from the sale of federal land
would go to irrigation projects in the West; in the West, water is scarce, and
its supply is a dominant issue economically, and therefore politically and
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socially. That was true in 1880, 1902, and it is still true today.
2.
Expedition Act 1903 --Anti-trust suits to the head of the list of cases, which
expedites their adjudication.
3.
Department of Commerce and Labor created with a Bureau of Corporation
empowered to investigate the activities of corporations.
4.
Elkins Railroad Act 1903--strengthened the ICC and made the receiving of
rebates illegal.
Roosevelt as Trust Buster
1.
Even very early, he took the stand that regulation rather disruption was
necessary. This is a crucial difference between TR and Woodrow Wilson,
and, furthermore, TR is correct in that business consolidation was inevitable.
a.
He hated the term "Trust Buster"
b.
The term "Square Deal" is a much better indicator of his position.
Government should once more become a neutral arbiter rather than
the tool of any group (in this case, big business). The belief that TR
was fundamentally fair is the source for much of his popularity.
2.
There are setbacks for organized labor during his administration, most
notably the Danbury Hatters' Case. It should be observed that TR had
nothing to do with it.
a.
In the Danbury case, the strikers were prosecuted under Sherman
Antitrust, lost, and were assessed punitive triple damages ($250,000).
Since the union was not incorporated, the strikers were individually
and personally liable.
3.
Northern Securities Company in 1902.
a.
The company created a railroad monopoly in the Pacific Northwest
after a titanic battle between railroad tycoons James J. Hill and E.H.
Harriman was solved by merging. The leading figure in the holding
company was J.P. Morgan.
b.
Operating in great secrecy, TR files a lawsuit under Sherman
Antitrust to break Northern Securities up.
c.
Morgan was stunned and angry. He personally came to Washington
to find out if this were the opening shot of a campaign against
Morgan's other interests. He thought the problem could be
negotiated. "If we have done anything wrong, send your man to my
man, and we can fix it up."
d.
In 1904, the Supreme Court orders dissolution. This is the first of 54
antitrust suits. To put that into perspective, Benjamin Harrison filed
only 7, Grover Cleveland only 8, and William McKinley only 3.
e.
However, TR was at pains to assure Morgan that he saw no basic
conflict between capital and labor, and was not opposed to size per
se.
f.
TR tries to draw a distinction between a Good Trust or a Bad
Trust ("are you a good witch or a bad witch?")
(1)
He draws up "gentlemen's agreements" with U.S.
Steel, International Harvester, and Standard Oil in order to get
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them to clean up the worst abuses in exchange for a promise
not to prosecute. TR keeps his promise so long as the trusts
kept theirs. When Standard Oil reneges, TR takes them to
court and eventually secures its break up.
4.
The Anthracite Coal Strike in 1902 is the best illustration of all.
a.
United Mine Workers ask for an 8 hour day, 20% increase, and
recognition of the union.
b.
The owners, represented by George Baer, flatly refuse to negotiate.
c.
Exercising good discipline, the union avoids all violence and offers
to submit to arbitration.
d.
Owners respond by a mine shut down and prepare to starve the
miners out.
e.
Public sentiment was with the miners and against the mine owners,
the railroads, and Wall Street.
f.
TR becomes alarmed at the prospect of a coal famine with winter
approaching. He calls for a White House conference.
g.
The UMW agrees quickly. Baer refuses to even talk to the UMW and
demands that TR call out troops to break the strike, a la Grover
Cleveland at the Pullman strike.
h.
TR is furious and threatens to use federal troops to take over the
mines if a settlement is not reached
i.
TR also approaches J.P. Morgan and Mark Hanna (McKinley's
eminence grise) and appeals to them as responsible conservatives to
use their influence on Baer in order to head off social disaster.
j.
Neither Morgan nor Hanna expected or received a quid pro quo.
Both agree to pressure Baer. Since Morgan ultimately controlled the
railroads upon which the mine owners depended, that is a lot of
pressure indeed.
k.
Baer submits to arbitration.
l.
The final settlement grants a 9 hour day, a 10% pay increase, and no
union recognition.
m.
TR had construed his powers very broadly to interject the federal
government into a labor dispute in order to protect the public interest.
This is a milestone in the evolution of the modern presidency.
Roosevelt's Second Term
1.
TR neutralized all opposition within the party and is reelected in a landslide
2.
Hepburn Act 1906
a.
ICC is given the power to fix rates
b.
ICC is given the power to inspect the records of RR
c.
ICC is given the power to control sleeping cars, oil pipelines, and
other businesses engaged in transportation
d.
Free passes are outlawed
e.
Unfortunately, the ICC tended to adopt an archaic view of the public
interest. It ignored inflation, refused rate increases, and as a result,
many RRs get into trouble.
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f.
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TR's compromise with the RRs in getting this bill passed caused a
permanent breach with LaFollette.
3.
Pure Food and Drug Act
a.
forbade the sale of adulterated or fraudulently labelled products
4.
Meat Inspection Act 1906
a.
Result of Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle.
b.
Major packers favored the act for the export market, primarily pork
bound for Germany.
5.
Roosevelt as a Centrist
a.
Advocated careful, moderate change
b.
Attempted to rein in both the left and the right.
c.
However, he moved steadily to the left.
(1)
He was hostile to business only when it tried to exploit
national domain.
(2)
However, in 1907 for broader regulation
(a)
8 hour day
(b)
broader workman's compensation
(c)
inheritance and income taxes
(d)
regulation of the stock market.
(3)
Begins openly criticizing conservatives in Congress, which
opens a gulf with them
6.
Roosevelt and Conservation
a.
The battle over conservation widened that gulf
b.
Used executive powers used to restrict private development in
millions of acres of government land.
c.
John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club were highly sympathetic.
(1)
TR is President who sets aside national parks such as
Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.
d.
His policies tended more toward Gifford Pinchot, the first
professionally trained forester in the U.S. TR wants to manage our
resources, so that they can continue to be exploited for the sake of
growth, but in such a manner as not to destroy the national patrimony
for future generations. Therefore, he both wants to set aside parks of
great natural beauty and leave them pristine, but also to scientifically
and rationally manage our resources.
e.
Calls the National Conservation Conference and organizes a national
census of our resources.
f.
TR is largely responsible for the U.S. conservation movement. He
was indefatigable in the struggle, and he faced implacable opposition.
TR and the Panic of 1907
1.
The Panic of 1907 is part of the normal business cycle
2.
Production outran consumption
3.
The banking system was inadequate.
4.
Irresponsible stock speculation shattered prosperity
5.
Banks fail, factories close, workers laid off.
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J.P. Morgan comes back from Europe to halt the crisis. He is acting entirely
as a private citizen. He had the clout to do it. He is also acting as a
responsible conservative. He literally locked leading financiers and
industrialists in his dining room, then went around and told each man how
much money he would contribute to a special fund (the amounts were not
subject to negotiation) and demanded complete authority in deciding how to
use the money and on what businesses should be allowed to fail, which
should be merged, and which would receive an influx of cash. He is acting,
in short, as a central bank. Morgan is successful, but the episode points out
the need for a central bank and helps provide support for the creation of the
Federal Reserve Bank.
a.
During the crisis, Morgan asks TR if he would prosecute if Morgan
merged Tennessee Iron and Coal with U.S. Steel. TR promised that
he would not. When Taft later files suit against Tennessee Iron and
Coal, TR regards it as a personal betrayal and this helps create the
break between the two men.
7.
Ignoring the fact that TR had nothing to do with the Panic, the conservatives
label it the "Roosevelt Panic." In response, TR turned self-consciously to the
left.
8.
At the end of his first full term, TR decided to step down. He would easily
have won another term. It is a decision he would soon regret. He goes off on
a safari to Africa. Morgan commented that he hoped the first lion to meet
Roosevelt would do his duty.
William Howard Taft
A.
Taft was hand-picked by TR
1.
An intelligent and experienced man
2.
Had served as Solicitor General, governor of the Philippines, and Secretary
of War
3.
After leaving the Presidency, he will serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court.
4.
Easily beats William Jennings Bryan
5.
Proved to be a genial man who instinctively tried to avoid conflict. Lacked
TRs dynamism, and this hurts his image. He could not physically have
sustained that kind of dynamism--he weighed over 300 lbs and needed a
special bathtub installed; high activity would have killed him. In fact, he has
the bad luck to be sandwiched between two very unusually dynamic
presidents in TR and Woodrow Wilson. When looked at dispassionately,
Taft is a better president than he is thought to have been.
B.
Progressive Achievements
1.
Enforced Sherman Anti-trust far more vigorously than TR. Hofstadter points
out that while TR brought 54 suits in 7 years, Taft brought 90 in 4 years.
(Hofstadter, American Political Tradition 294)
2.
Mann-Elkins Act 1910--ICC given power to suspend a rate increase without
a complaint
3.
Institutes a federal 8 hour day
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4.
Improved mine safety
5.
Tried to lower the tariff (an issue TR would not have touched)
Failures
1.
Two issues, which Taft handled ineptly, alienate his friends and drive him
into the arms of the conservative Old Guard of the Republican Party
a.
Payne-Aldrich Tariff
(1)
A downward revision of the tariff, introduced by Payne,
passes the House quickly
(2)
Nelson Aldrich, the Old Guard Republican leads the fight to
restore rates in the Senate by amending the bill to death. He
has the political clout to do this.
(3)
A bitterly fought Senate battle is led for the Progressives by
LaFollette and Albert J. Beveridge. Taft, however,
conspicuously does not help with the floor fight. LaFollette
and his wing of radical Progressives regard this as a personal
betrayal.
(4)
The final bill seemed to favor Aldrich's Northeastern U.S.
conspicuously.
(5)
Taft then blunders badly by signing the bill, and makes it
worse by telling a Midwestern audience that "the best [tariff]
bill the Republican Party has ever passed."
b.
The Ballinger-Pinchot Feud
(1)
The new Secretary of the Interior, Richard Ballinger, was a
corporation lawyer, and thus viewed with extreme suspicion
by Pinchot and conservationists.
(2)
Ballinger restored some water power sites and also some
forest lands for commercial exploitation that TR had reserved.
His ground was that TR had erred and had illegal withdrawn
the land. This is very likely correct legally.
(3)
Louis Glavis gives Pinchot evidence to show that Ballinger
planned to restore mining sites for personal profit (the sort of
thing that Secretaries of the Interior had done in the past and
would do in the future, most notably under Grant and
Harding).
(4)
Pinchot attacks Ballinger intemperately. Taft supported
Ballinger and fired Glavis. Pinchot then goes to the press.
This left Taft with no choice but to fire Pinchot for
insubordination.
(5)
This damages Taft in two ways
(a)
Firing Pinchot alienates conservationists, who tend to
forget that his overall record on conservation is very
good.
(b)
Pinchot is a close personal friend of TRs, who regards
the firing as a personal betrayal.
i)
As you may have noted, one weakness that TR
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shares with LaFollette is that neither man can
separate policy disagreements from personal
loyalty.
(c)
Taft has now alienated both the relatively
conservative and radical Progressive wings of the
Republican Party.
Theodore Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party
A.
Taft throws in his lot with the Old Guard.
B.
TR comes out of retirement at Oyster Bay
C.
Delivers his New Nationalism Speech at Ossawatomie Kansas in 1910, marking the
beginning of his drive to regain the presidency.
1.
Argument lifted from Herbert Croly's The Promise of American Life, 1909.
D.
"Mr. Croly Writes a Book"--the following title and summary is lifted from Eric
Goldman, Chapter IX.
1.
Jeffersonianism was basically unsound at any time, and especially so in the
20th century. (Goldman 150)
2.
Croly denies that restoring opportunity would effect reform. "The strong
and capable men not only conquer, but they seek to perpetuate their
conquests by occupying all the strategic points in the economic and
political battlefield . . . Thus in so far as equal rights are exercised, they
are bound to result in inequalities; and these inequalities are bound to
make for their own perpetuation, and so to provoke further
discrimination." (Goldman 150-1)
a.
The attempt to restore free competition was fallacious, since breaking
up trusts would not benefit the public.
3.
Civilized societies should try to substitute cooperation for competition [sound
like Sesame Street]. "Sweeping continuous federal powers should be used
to rein their activities to the national interest. In the event that any
corporation achieved a monopoly detrimental to the country, it should be
nationalized." (Goldman 151)
4.
Jeffersonian free competition implies that government can pass fair and
impartial laws. Croly denies it. "In cold fact, Croly insisted, there was no
such thing as impartial legislation; every law, of necessity, discriminated
for and against some interest." (Goldman 151)
5.
Jeffersonian equal rights doctrine leads to a misunderstanding of unions.
"The unions were not really seeking 'fair play' as so many progressives
believed. They were after 'special opportunities.' The average union
member 'has no respect for traditional American individualism as applied
to his own social and economic standing. Whenever he has had the
power, he has suppressed competition as ruthlessly as have his
employers." (Goldman 152)
"'[T]he large corporations and the unions occupy in certain respects a
similar relation to the American political system. Their advocates both
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7.
8.
9.
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believe in associated action for themselves and in competition for their
adversaries. They both demand governmental protection and recognition
but resent the notion of efficient governmental regulation. They . . . both
are opposed to any interference by the federal government--except
exclusively in their own behalf." (Goldman 152) [This paragraph was
partially quoted to construct an AP essay]
a.
Who were the "people" then?
The "people" are
individuals and groups pursuing their own
selfish goals. This is an important lesson for AP students--do
not think in generalities about "the people" or "the proletariat" or "the
masses." Think in terms of distinct interest groups.
Croly calls for powerful officials operating a powerful state.
These officials must be relatively free of selfish interests.
Croly writes that we require a "New Nationalism" that directs individual
efforts way from self-aggrandizement and toward the collective solution of
national problems.
a.
At this point, one cannot help but note the strong resemblance of
Croly's ideas to some aspects of later fascist ideology. Of course,
Croly in his worst nightmares could not have imagined Hitler's
Germany.
Croly warned against inward looking thinking among minority groups since
group centered voting militated against community interest. This warning is
today being repeated by such solid gold liberals as Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. American politics is becoming more and more
balkanized.
"Croly's insistence that at bottom, the reform hope rested on simple,
absolute morality pointed to troublesome possibilities in the general
philosophy of the progressives--their Reform Darwinism argument that all
ideas must be submitted to the pragmatic test, particularly the pragmatic
test of asking what economic interest is served by believing the ideas. . .
. (Goldman 154)
"When [Reformers] said that all ideas must be related to economic
interest, they did not really mean all ideas; they meant only their
opponents' ideas. So conservatism became a rationalization of greed,
while the tenets of progressivism were 'scientific,' 'objective,' and 'moral,'
the same kind of absolute Truth and Good that has immemorially given
men enthusiasm for a cause." (Goldman 155)
"Once your own movement as well as the other fellow's is stripped of the
Truth and the Good, once thinking has entered a phase of sweeping
relativism, the troubles come.
"Relativism encourages the most blatant kind of self-aggrandizing politics;
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if all ideas reflect economic interests, why not advocate the program that
most directly serves yourself or your group?
". . . Relativism easily turns into a doctrine of expediency. Asserting the
impossibility of absolute standards removes any very compelling check on
the choice of means to an end, thus encouraging a practice that usually
needs little encouraging anyhow--justifying the means by the end."
(Goldman 155)
E.
F.
G.
H.
"By heavily emphasizing environment as the factor that makes men what
they are, Reform Darwinism opened the way to using the environment as
an excuse for any failure of ability or of will power [or morals]. Eat,
drink, and be antisocial, for tomorrow the environment explains us."
(Goldman 156)
11.
Croly advocates a tremendously powerful nation-state, tied to an absolute
morality, that would regulate corporations, unions, small businesses, and
agriculture in the national interest. Leaders would guide public opinion more
than they would be guided by it.
12.
Croly provides an amazingly powerful critique of Progressivism which
strikes me as still very modern and valid. His solution however has strong
fascist affinities, and therefore makes one distinctly queasy. He still retains
a rosier view of human nature than the course of 20th century history will
permit.
New Nationalism
1.
"I do not merely mean that I stand for fair play under the present rules
of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work
for a more substantial equality of opportunity."
2.
Approached the campaign with religious fervor: "We stand at Armageddon
and we battle for the Lord!"
3.
TR concluded that the complexity of modern society
required Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian
end.
Break with Taft
1.
Over Pinchot, Tennessee Iron and Coal.
2.
Wins every primary but is crushed by Taft at the convention. A sitting
President simply had too much power.
The Bull Moose Party
1.
Forms a third party, officially the Progressive Party
a.
Popularly known as the Bull Moose Party from his "I feel as fit as a
bull moose."
2.
Bankrolled by Frank Munsey and George Perkins.
Platform
1.
strict regulation of corporations
2.
a tariff commission (ie technical experts to depoliticize the tariff)
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3.
national presidential primaries
4.
minimum wage laws
5.
workman's compensation
6.
end child labor
I.
Delivers his "Confession of Faith" speech in Chicago.
Election of 1912
A.
Democrats pull a surprise and nominate Woodrow Wilson instead of William
Jennings Bryan.
B.
Wilson proposes the New Freedom
1.
Differed from the New Nationalism chiefly in its approach to trusts.
2.
TR accepted economic concentration and sought to control it.
3.
Wilson believed bigness per se was unjust and inefficient and desired to
break up monopolies.
a.
Thereafter, let the market protect the public
b.
He believed that free competition could be restored.
4.
Wilson is, in the context of American history, less drastic and less radical
than TR. His views give less danger of the abuse of power by a powerful
state.
5.
In office, Wilson tends however to act in
accordance with the New Nationalism, a process that
is enormously accelerated with World War I, when
government involvement in every aspect of the
economy reached proportions undreamt by the Gilded
Age.
Both Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano
Roosevelt held appointive office under Wilson in
World War I.
C.
Wilson's Election
1.
The election of 1912 is significant in part because all three candidates were
reform candidates, with TR being the most radical and Taft the most
conservative of the three
2.
The split in the Republican Party guaranteed a Democratic victory. TR ran
second and Taft a poor third.
3.
TR vs. Wilson represented a major debate within American reform
a.
New Nationalism wing (regulate, cooperate) vs.
New Freedom (break up monopolies, restore
competition)
b.
The New Deal has both a New Nationalist wing
and a New Freedom wing. The so-called First
100
Days
is
largely
New
Nationalist,
especially the National Industrial Recovery
Administration.
The Second 100 Days is
largely New Freedom.
c.
TR and Woodrow Wilson personally detested each other.
XIV. The New Freedom
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Woodrow Wilson is the son of a Presbyterian minister, and is also the first
Southerner to serve in the White House since the Civil War. (One of his childhood
memories was watching Jefferson Davis flee Federal troops in 1865).
1.
He inherits a full measure of Protestant religious earnestness and moral
purpose. Wilson is above all an idealist and a moralist. Goldman writes that
for Wilson, "reform took on the air of a sunrise service." (Goldman 169)
Academic Career
1.
Wilson first rose to prominence as the outstanding scholar in political science
in the U.S., building a nationwide reputation unusual in an academic.
2.
President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910
a.
Reminiscences of surviving students attest to the vitality and
excitement of his teaching.
b.
Wilson is chiefly responsible for making Princeton a great university
and a modern one, as well. To say that he is revered there is to put it
very mildly indeed. The world's greatest Wilson scholar, Arthus S.
Link Jr., teaches (or taught, I imagine he is retired now; he was close
to retirement and in poor health in 1973) there. What Mr. Link does
not know about Wilson is not worth knowing.
(1)
Completely revised the curriculum
(2)
Integrated the course of study
(3)
Introduced the preceptorial system, which is extremely
expensive but is at the heart of Princeton's superiority in
undergraduate education. A typical class might have one hour
of lecture a week and two hours of precept. The precept met
in the professor's office, and held no more than 10 students.
Preceptor and lecturer were not always the same, but all
faculty at Princeton teach undergraduates (up to and including
the President). A student can easily have a preceptor who is
among the leading authorities in the field. It is a method that
requires a high teacher/student ratio and professors who can
teach as well as research. Princeton is not paradise, but my
dominant memories are sitting at the feet of men like Mr.
Fleming, Mr. Roche, Mr. Miller, Mr. Litz, and above all Mr.
Lange and Mr. Baker.
(4)
Eventually alienated the trustees in a stupid fight regarding
the construction of the Graduate School and resigns.
3.
Governor of New Jersey 1910-1912
a.
Elected with the cooperation of big city machines. Wilson promptly
turns on them to push through a wide range of reform measures.
b.
He shows, as at Princeton, his self-righteousness and stubbornness
that are his chief weaknesses. Both at Princeton and as Governor, his
most productive period is early. As time goes on, he becomes much
less effective, and he makes a lot of enemies. The fight at Princeton
was not only stupid, but extremely ugly in its revelation of rigidity
and vindictiveness in Wilson's character. The same thing will happen
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as President.
Wilson as President
1.
Believed in executive power even more than did TR, based on his study of
the British system.
a.
Saw the President as a legislative leader
b.
Demanded unswerving loyalty from his Cabinet
c.
Used patronage effectively to build coalitions
2.
First President to personally address Congress since 1801.
a.
Held Congress in session a record 9 months and whiplashes it to
produce a torrent of legislation
3.
Inaugural Address: "The Nation has been deeply stirred, stirred by a
solemn passion, stirred by the knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost, of
government too often debauched and made an instrument of evil. The
feelings with which we face this new age of right and opportunity sweep
across our heartstrings like some air out of God's own presence. . . ."
(Goldman 169)
4.
He pushes through 4 major pieces of legislation, any one of which would
ordinary be the capstone of a Congressional session. It is an amazing
performance.
The Underwood Tariff 1913
1.
The first significant reductions since the Civil War, and the only one from the
Morrill Tariff to the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
2.
Purpose was to equalize foreign and domestic costs and restore free trade.
3.
The bill compensates for the loss of revenue by a graduated income tax
Federal Reserve Act 1913
1.
First central banking system since Jackson killed the BUS.
2.
Created 12 banking districts, each with a branch of the Federal Reserve
Bank (usually called "the Fed")
3.
The Fed is governed by the Federal Reserve Board. Wilson, like most
Presidents, appointed conservative bankers to the Fed.
4.
The Fed is a bankers' bank. Participants invest 60% of their capital in the
Fed.
5.
The Fed exchanges (or "rediscounts") paper money for commercial and
agricultural notes.
6.
Federal Reserve notes become the chief medium of exchange. Since the U.S.
is now off of any metallic monetary standard, it is the only medium of
exchange.
7.
The Fed can use its reserves to lend money to banks at a discounted rate (the
prime interest rate). It can also shift money to a troubled area quickly.
8.
The Fed controls the supply of money and therefore
is the chief agent in regulating the economy.
a.
Expands or contracts the money supply by increasing or decreasing
the percentage of a banks' assets which must be reserved to meet daily
expenses. Increasing the reserve % has the effect of decreasing the
money supply, since this money cannot be used for loans. This is a
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very powerful but slow acting tool.
b.
Can also expand or contract the money supply by increasing or
decreasing the prime interest rate. A decrease in the prime interest
rate will ripple through the economy, causing all other interest rates
to drop, and therefore making it easier to borrow. This will stimulate
the economy. Fluctuations in the prime interest rate is the usual way
the Fed tries to regulate the economy. It works faster, and is easier to
tinker with.
9.
As a regulatory agency, the Fed actually more nearly resembles the New
Nationalism than the New Freedom.
The Federal Trade Commission 1914
1.
Replaced the Bureau of Corporations
2.
Given the power to investigate interstate corporations and to issue "cease and
desist" orders against unfair business practices. The orders could be appealed
to the courts, but in the meantime, the practice must stop.
3.
As a regulatory agency, the FTC actually more nearly resembles the New
Nationalism than the New Freedom.
The Clayton Anti-trust Act 1914
1.
Declares tying contracts and interlocking directorates illegal.
2.
Labor unions and agricultural organizations are specifically exempted from
antitrust laws.
a.
This prevents a prosecution under Sherman such as the Pullman strike
and the Danbury Hatters' case.
b.
Needless to say, this is a massive victory for labor and farm interests.
3.
Use of injunctions curtailed; the plaintiff must prove "irreparable damage."
4.
Corporate officers are declared individually and personally responsible for
antitrust violations.
Limits to Wilson's Progressivism
1.
Hated all privilege, including to farmers and workers.
2.
Refused to give his support to woman suffrage on states' rights grounds.
wilson is irrelevant to the woman suffrage movement.
3.
Condoned the reimposition of segregation in the federal government. Wilson
is frankly hostile to the aspirations of Black Americans.
4.
Believed his program was in place by 1914 and tried to stop.
5.
Democratic losses in the House in 1916 brought him out again.
6.
Appoints Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court. Since Brandeis is not only
an arch-Progressive but a Jew, this required real political courage. Wilson
has to fight very hard to secure the confirmation, since anti-semitism in the
U.S. is quite real.
7.
Keating-Owen Act barred goods manufactured by the labor of children under
16 from interstate commerce.
8.
Adamson Act provided for an 8 hour day for 10 hours of pay for RR workers.
9.
Smith-Lever Act provided matching grants for agricultural education.
Wilson attempts to use federal spending power to achieve social control. he also
dramatically expanded the role of the federal government (even before the First
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World War). His administrations are consequently crucial steps in the creation of a
modern bureaucratic state.
Progressives and the Race Issue
A.
The Populist/Progressive is a time period of deteriorating conditions for Black
Americans and a steady strengthening of Jim Crow Laws.
1.
There were 1,100 lynchings between 1900-1914
2.
The first wave of Black Americans begin migrating to Northern and
Midwestern cities. The pace speeds up dramatically with war-time jobs.
B.
Booker T. Washington is the dominant spokesman for Black Americans in the late
19th and early 20th centuries. His policy emphasized gradualism and of vocational
training and economic progress.
1.
Washington was born a slave, and educated with the assistance of white
benefactors.
2.
Establishes the Tuskegee Institute in 1881. In order to build the school, he
had to obtain money and good will from the surrounding white community.
3.
Washington on racial harmony: "Any movement for the elevation of the
Southern Negro, in order to be successful, must have to a certain extent
the cooperation of the Southern whites. They control government and
own the property--whatever benefits the black man benefits the white man.
. . . Brains, property, and character for the Negro will settle the question
of civil rights. The best course to pursue in regard to the civil rights bill
in the South is to let it alone; let it alone and it will settle itself." (Franklin
247)
4.
His Atlanta Compromise Speech in 1895 is a definitive statement, and is
addressed explicitly to both races: "In all things that are purely social, we
can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things
essential to mutual progress . . . . The wisest among my race understand
that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and
that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us
must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial
forcing. . . . The opportunity to earn dollar in a factory just now is worth
infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house."
(Washington 10-11)
a.
Washington is offering a tacit deal: Black Americans will accept
second-class citizenship if whites will assist them in vocational
training.
b.
Such an attitude, obviously, won him widespread support from
Southern whites.
5.
Until his death in 1915, Washington was accepted by most Black Americans
as their leader and spokesman, and whites turned to him for advice on race
relations. (Franklin 250)
C.
W.E.B. DuBois emerges to challenge Booker T. Washington as the leading
spokesman for Black Americans.
1.
DuBois was born into a comfortable mulatto family in Massachusetts and
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never saw the white man as a benefactor, as Washington had.
2.
Graduated from Fisk University and then Harvard for his doctorate (the first
Black American to receive a doctorate from Harvard) and the University of
Berlin. On purely academic grounds within his discipline, which was
sociology--ignoring his importance politically or to the debate over strategy
within the Black community--DuBois is an important figure.
3.
His Souls of the Black Folk in 1903, published while he was teaching at
Atlanta University, begins his attack on Washington's approach.
4.
Rejected Washington's gradualist approach and limited goals.
5.
Accused Washington of advocating a program that provided a cheap,
submissive labor force for the industrializing South.
6.
Enraged by white racism and he responds with Black Nationalism.
7.
Believes that Black Americans must organize and agitate for full civil rights
immediately. Very confrontational in tactics.
8.
Believes that Black Americans must preserve their cultural identity.
9.
He is an elitist; thinks that the future is in the hands of the "Talented Tenth"
Niagara Movement 1905
1.
Organized by men of both races
2.
Demanded unrestricted right to vote
3.
Demanded an end to racial segregation
4.
Demanded equality of economic opportunity
5.
Demanded higher education for the talented
6.
Demanded equal justice in the courts
7.
Demanded end to trade union discrimination (both women as well as Black
Americans were often excluded from unions because the unions feared they
would work for lower wages.)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 1909
1.
Dedicated to the eradication of racial discrimination
2.
DuBois is a national officer and editor of its publications
3.
Represents an increasing rejection of Washington's approach.
Some thoughts on Washington vs. DuBois
1.
The contrast between the two men is so obvious that it has been the source
of two essay questions and one DBQ on the AP examination. It may also be
used as a starting point to discuss the internal debate among Black Americans
on the best course to follow to obtain full equality.
2.
Most of my students are strongly pro-DuBois, and it is easy to see why.
a.
Washington's strategy has a very important weakness in that he
advocated a type of vocational training that fostered artisans:
blacksmiths, carpenters, bricklayers, etc. Such occupations would be
minimized with the Industrial Revolution. He counseled Black
Americans to stay in the South on farms, without realizing that the
use of farm machinery would make their plight even more hopeless
than it was. In short, while an argument can be made that
Washington is correct that economic advancement will make
possible all other forms of advancement (ie if one has economic
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power, all other types of power will eventually follow), the type of
economic advancement Washington advocated was already
outmoded. DuBois' criticism that Washington was simply insuring
an ignorant, submissive and cheap labor force, and therefore,
perpetuating a master/slave relationship, looks pretty trenchant.
(Franklin 249-50)
b.
It is also difficult to quarrel with DuBois' contention "that it was not
possible, under modern competitive methods, for Negro artisans,
businessmen, and property owners to defend their rights and exist
without the suffrage." (Franklin 249) DuBois passionately believes
that progress is unitary, and that political and social progress must go
hand in hand with economic progress.
c.
DuBois' work with the NAACP, of which he is a founding member
and most prominent spokesman, places him in a tradition that leads
to Martin Luther King, Jr. However, as the first great advocate of
Black Nationalism, he also stands in a line that will run through
Marcus Garvey to Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael. Intellectual
antecedents are sometimes not clear-cut.
Booker T. Washington is not however, as simple as he may appear at first
glance.
a.
He is by no means blind to racial prejudice. Lynching remained a
frequent throughout his life. Violence against Black Americans in the
South and increasingly in the North as well intensified if anything.
(Ida Wells Barnett reports 86, 123, 102, 90, and 103 lynchings of
Black Americans from 1896-1900). (Barnett 423)
b.
He was, actually and very quietly, paying for some of the earliest civil
rights cases. (Franklin 248)
c.
Goldman gives an important clue to a sophisticated evaluation of the
man: "It is possible to exaggerate the amount of faith in the
white man which this background gave Booker Washington.
His was a practical, canny mind, operating in a situation that
suggested bargaining Negro equality for some Negro advances.
('Actually,' W. E. B. Du Bois once remarked, 'Washington had
no more faith in the white man than I do,' which was saying
that he had little faith indeed.) But whatever was going on
behind that calm, pleasant face of Booker Washington, he
spoke no belligerence toward the white man and no call for
immediate equality." (Goldman 63)
(1)
I am struck by the similarity of Goldman's picture to images
of how slaves coped with white society that has emerged from
modern research. It appears quite clear that slaves carefully
masked their real feelings from white society. It was
dangerous to do otherwise, since the slaves were virtually
powerless if whites were aroused against them. Slaves could
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and did negotiate benefits, but the area available for
negotiation was circumscribed.
d.
If I were to develop a defence of Washington's policy, I would extend
this idea. Washington was living during a time
period when Jim Crow was being steadily and
harshly imposed and when the determination to
enforce white supremacy was backed by frequent
violence. It could well be argued that as a
purely practical matter, the only way to
achieve any gains for Black Americans at all
was by conciliation with whites, which
necessitates
a
gradualist
approach
and
acceptance of a large degree of second class
citizenship. Just because whites interpreted
his policy as a final solution does not mean
that Washington saw it as a final solution
(Franklin seems to agree; cf 248). Confrontation would lead to
violent suppression. Washington therefore wears a friendly mask
toward whites and tries to achieve all that is possible to him under the
circumstances.
Presidential response
1.
TR is certainly a racist, but on the other hand really does not do anything to
hurt Black Americans even if he doesn't try to help them. He turns ugly at a
problem with some Black American troops, but he also invited Booker T.
Washington to the White House (the invitation and Washington's acceptance
caused quite a furor in the South).
2.
Wilson is not usually thought of as a racist, but he is actually actively hostile.
He shares the attitude toward race of most Southerners of his generation, and
firmly supported segregation. He refused to speak out against D.W. Griffiths'
Birth of a Nation basically because he agreed with it.
DuBois can be seen as a Black American Progressive and his movement fits into the
general flow of the movement. However, Progressivism is overwhelmingly white,
urban and middle-class Protestant. Progressivism has little to say to Black
Americans one way or the other.
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Works Cited
Barnett, Ida B. Wells. "Lynching and the Excuse for It." Annals
of America.
Vol. 12.
Chicago: Encyclopeadia
Britannica, 1976. 420-3
Beard, Charles. "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution."
The American Past:
C o n f l i c t i n g
Interpretations of the
GreatIssues.Ed.Sidney
Fine and Gerald
Brown. 4th Edition
Vol. 1. New York:
MacMillan, 1976.
212-227.
Degler, Carl. Out of Our Past: The Forces That Shaped Modern
America. 3rd ed. New York:
Harper and Row, 1984.
Franklin, John Hope and Moss, Alfred A. Jr. From Slavery to
Freedom: A History of Negro
Americans. 6th ed. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.
Goldman, Eric. Rendezvous With Destiny: A History of Modern American
Gordon, Irving. Review Text in American History . New York:
Reform. New
York: Vintage
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