POLITICAL REFORM IN THE NATION
- While Progressive governors & mayors battled conservative forces at the state & local level, 3 presidents (Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson) sought
reforms & regulations at the national level
THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S SQUARE DEAL
- Following Pres. McKinley's assassination in September 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became president at age 42, the youngest to hold that job
- He believed the president should do much more than lead the executive departments, but he should set the legislative agenda for Congress
- The Progressive movement suddenly shot into high gear under the leadership of an activist, reform-minded president
1. "SQUARE DEAL" FOR LABOR
- Presidents in the 19th century had taken the side of business in conflicts with labor (Hayes in railroad strike, Cleveland in the Pullman Strike)
- Roosevelt, in the first economic crisis of his presidency, demonstrated he favored neither business nor labor but insisted on a Square Deal
- The crisis involved a coal miners' strike in 1902 as Americans feared that if the strike continued without coal, they would freeze in the winter
- Roosevelt tried to mediate the labor dispute by calling a union leader & coal mine owners to the White House
- The mine owners' stubborn refusal to compromise angered the president
- To ensure the delivery of coal to consumers, he threatened to take over the mines with federal troops
- The owners finally agreed to accept the findings of a special commission, which granted a 10% wage increase and 9-hour day to the miners
(but didn't grant union recognition)
- Voters overwhelmingly approved Roosevelt & his Square Deal by elected him by a landslide in 1904
2. TRUST-BUSTING
- Roosevelt increased his popularity by being the first president since the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 to enforce that law
- The trust that he most wanted to bust was a combination of railroads known as the Northern Securities Company
- Reversing its position in earlier cases, the Supreme Court in 1904 upheld Roosevelt's action in breaking up the railroad monopoly
- Roosevelt later directed his attorney general to take antitrust action against Standard Oil and more than 40 other large corporations
- Roosevelt did make a distinction between breaking up "bad trusts," which harmed the public & stifled competition, & regulating "good trusts,"
which through efficiency and low prices dominated a market
3. RAILROAD REGULATION
- Roosevelt persuaded a Republican Congress to pass 2 laws that strengthened the regulatory powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission
- Under the Elkins Act in 1903, the ICC had greater authority to stop railroads from granting rebates to favored customers
- Under the Hepburn Act in 1906, the commission could fix "just and reasonable" rates for railroads
4. CONSUMER PROTECTION
- "The Jungle," a muckraking book by Upton Sinclair, described in horrifying detail the conditions in Chicago stockyards & meatpacking industry
- The public outcry following the publication of Sinclair's novel caused Congress to enact two regulatory laws in 1906:
1. The Pure Food and Drug Act forbade the manufacture, sale & transportation of adulterated or mislabeled foods and drugs
2. The Meat Inspection Act provided that federal inspectors visit meatpacking plants to ensure they met minimum standards of sanitation
5. CONSERVATION
- As a lover of the wilderness & the outdoor life, Roosevelt made an enthusiastic champion of the cause of conservation
- Roosevelt's most lasting contribution in domestic policy may have been his efforts to protect the nation's natural resources in 3 big actions
1. He used the Forest Reserve Act to set aside 150 million acres of federal land as a national reserve that couldn't be sold to private interests
2. In 1902, he got the Newlands Reclamation Act, a law providing money from the sale of public land for irrigation projects in western states
3. In 1908, he hosted a conference on conservation & established a National Conservation Commission under Gifford Pinchot who was the first
director of the U.S. Forest Service
WILLIAM TAFT'S PRESIDENCY
- Honoring the two-term tradition, Roosevelt refused to seek reelection and picked his Sec. of War, William Taft, to be his successor
- Republicans endorsed Taft as it nominee for president in 1908, & defeated for a third time the Democrats' William Jennings Bryan
MORE TRUST-BUSING AND CONSERVATION
- Taft continued Roosevelt's Progressive policies as he ordered the prosecution of twice the number of antitrust cases as Roosevelt
- Among these cases was one against U.S. Steel, which included a merger that had been approved by President Roosevelt
- An angry Roosevelt viewed Taft's action as a personal attack on his integrity
- As a conservationist, Taft established the Bureau of Mines, added big tracts in the Appalachians to the national forest reserves, & set aside
federal oil lands (the first president to do so)
- The Mann-Elkins Act of 1910 gave the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to suspend new railroad rates & oversee telephone,
telegraph, & cable companies
- The 16th Amendment ratified by the states in 1913, authorized the U.S. gov't to collect an income tax (had been proposed by the Populists)
- Progressives approved the new income tax because, at first, it applied only to the very wealthy
SPLIT IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
- Progressives in the Republican Party were unimpressed with Taft's achievements as they accused him of betraying their cause & joining the
conservative wing of their party as they listed the following reasons:
1. PAYNE-ALDRICH TARIFF: During his campaign, Taft had promised to lower the tariff. Instead, conservative Republicans passed the PayneAldrich Tariff, which raised the tariff on most imports. Taft angered Progressives in his party by defending the tariff when he signed it
2. PINCHOT-BALLINGER CONTROVERSY: The Progressives liked the chief of the Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot as a dedicated conservationist.
Progressives distrusted Taft's Secretary of the Interior, Richard Ballinger, after he opened public lands in Alaska for private development. When
Pinchot criticized Ballinger, Taft stood by Ballinger and fired Pinchot for insubordination. Conservatives applauded & Progressives protested.
3. HOUSE SPEAKER JOE CANNON: Progressive Republicans became even angrier with the president when he failed to support their effort to
reduce the dictatorial powers of Congress' leading conservative, Speaker of the House Joseph Cannon
4. MIDTERM CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS IN 1910: Fighting back against his Progressive critics, Taft supported conservative candidates for
Congress in the midterm elections of 1910. Progressive Republicans from the Midwest easily defeated the candidates endorsed by Taft. After
this election, the Republican Party was split wide open between two opposing groups: a conservative faction loyal to Taft & a Progressive
faction that hoped that their ex-president, Theodore Roosevelt, would agree to become their candidate again in 1912
RISE OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY
- A third party developed in the early 1900s that was dedicated to the welfare of the working class
- Originally called the Socialist Labor Party in 1897, it changed its name in 1901 to the Socialist Party of America
- The Socialist platform called for more radical reforms than the Progressive favored: public ownership of the railroads, utilities, & even of major
industries such as oil & steel
EUGENE DEBS
- One of the founders of the Socialist Party, Eugene Debs, was the party's candidate for president in five elections from 1900 to 1920
- A former railway union leader who adopted socialism while jailed for the Pullman Strike, he criticized business & a supported labor
INFLUENCE
- On such issues as workers' compensation & minimum wage laws, Progressives & some Socialists joined forces
- Progressives wanted to distance themselves from the ideas of Socialists, since most voters favored only mild reforms & not radical causes
- Eventually, however, some Socialist ideas were accepted: public ownership of utilities, the 8-hour workday, & pensions for employees
- The party reached its peak in the presidential election of 1912 when Debs received over 900,000 votes…6% of the total vote