Transcript PROGRESSIVE ERA 1900-1920

PROGRESSIVE ERA
1900-1920
ELEMENTS OF REFORM
• Theodore Roosevelt was an ambitious
man whose eagerness to leave a mark
moved easily from the world arena to his
own country.
– He was more calculating in domestic politics
than in foreign affairs and more inclined to
follow the dictates of experience.
– He realized that 1901 was no time for a “big
stick” domestic policy.
WHO WERE THE
PROGRESSIVES?
• The Progressives saw themselves as engaged in a
democratic crusade against the abuses of urban political
bosses and corporate robber barons.
– Their goals were greater democracy and social justice,
honest government, more effective regulation of business,
and a revived commitment to public service.
– What they shared was a common assumption that the complex
social ills and tensions generated by the urban-industrial
revolution required new responses, responses that frequently
entailed expanding the scope of local, state, and federal
government authority.
– Doing so, they hoped, would ensure “the progress” of American
society.
– The “real heart of the movement,” declared one selfdescribed progressive reformer, was “to use the
government as an agency of human welfare.”
• Kansas editor William Allen White hinted at a
paradox the movement when he called
progressivism just “populism that had shaved its
whiskers, washed its shirt, put on a derby, and
moved up into the middle class.”
• As White suggested, urban business and
professional leaders brought to progressivism a
certain respectability and political savvy that the
Populists lacked.
– They also brought a more businesslike, efficient
approach to reform.
• Progressivism was more of an efficient mass movement in
addition to an appeal of agrarian democracy.
• Another paradox in the movement was that it
contained an element of conservatism. In some
cases the regulation of business turned out
actually to be regulation BY businessmen, who
preferred regulated stability to the chaos and
uncertainty of unrestrained competition.
– The progressive movement refers to the common
spirit of an age rather than to an organized group or
party. Much like the reform spirit of the 1830’s and
1840’s, once called Jacksonian Democracy,
progressivism was diverse in both origins and
tendencies. Few people adhered to all of the caried
progressive causes.
WHO WERE THE
PROGRESSIVES?
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Mugwumps (reform-minded Republicans)
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“Old” Populists
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William Allen White wrote: “Populism was the beginning of a
movement that in another decade was to change the politics of
the nation: indeed it was a symptom of a world wide drift to
liberalism, which reached its peak….twenty-five years later.”
Men of wealth and social standing (GOP)
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Desired a return to pre-monopoly America
Lamented change in America’s political and social climate due to
rise of industrialists: monopoly, plutocracy, & oligarchy
MIDDLE CLASS
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Wanted a return to equal opportunity and moral reform
“3rd Great Awakening”
• MIDDLE CLASS
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Political Reformers
Intellectuals- College professors
Women
Social Gospelites
Professionals
• Muckrakers
– Writers who thrived on exposing corruption and scandal to a weary
public
– Without muckrakers, progressivism would have never have achieved
the popular support it had.
– In feeding the public’s appetite for facts about their new urban-industrial
society, the muckrakers demonstrated one of the salient features of
Progressive, and one of its central failures.
• The Progressives were stronger on diagnosis than on remedy, thereby
reflecting a naïve faith in the power of democracy.
WHO WERE THEY?
• SOCIAL SCIENTISTS
– Richard Ely
– Charles Beard
– Woodrow Wilson
• LESTER FRANK WARD
• PROGRESSIVE ACTIVISTS
• JANE ADDAMS & FLORENCE KELLEY
POLITICAL REFORMERS (Reform first came from
the state level)
• ROBERT LaFOLLETTE (Wisconsin Experiment)
• CHARLES EVANS HUGHES (NY)
• HIRAM JOHNSON (CALIF.)
Muckrakers
• LET THE PEOPLE KNOW, EXPOSE
CORRUPTION, AND BRING
GOVERNMENT CLOSE TO THE
PEOPLE….THE CORRECTION OF
EVILS WOULD FOLLOW
AUTOMATICALLY.
• THE CURE FOR THE ILLS OF
DEMOCRACY WAS MORE
DEMOCRACY.
• Progressive Era came at a time when the
average American was more educated
and the American public school system
from Kindergarten to Higher Education
was becoming more and more effective
and available for all students.
Features of progressivism
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DEMOCRACY
EFFICIENCY
REGULATION
SOCIAL JUSTICE
ACTIVE GOVERNMENT
THE SOLUTION TO REFORM?
• MORE DEMOCRACY!!
– Referendum
– Initiative
– Recall
– Direct Primary
– Australian Ballot (secret ballot)
– City Manager-Commission System
– 17th Amendment
ROOSEVELT
• Roosevelt’s emergence as a national
leader coincided roughly with the onset of
progressivism, a movement so broadgauged it almost defied definition.
• SQUARE DEAL- The 3 C’s