Transcript Progressivism and the Republican Roosevelt

Progressivism and the
Republican Roosevelt
Chapter 28
Chapter 28 Themes
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The over-arching theme of chapter 28 is that reformers
called “Progressives” sought to clean up America on
behalf of the people. Teddy Roosevelt became the bestknown and most active Progressive.
The Progressives grew out of the Populist (or People’s)
Party and sought to correct injustices.
Progressives and “muckraker” writers attacked city
corruption, corporate greed, poor living and working
conditions, alcohol, and women’s right to vote. Each of
these ills saw laws and/or Amendments passed to
attempt to better the condition.
Progressive Roots
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The “Progressive Movement” initiated before the
first decade of the 20th century.
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They attempted to expose the abuses of business and
the corruption in politics.
Their main purpose was to use the government as an
agency of human welfare.
They originated from Greenback Labor Party of the
1870s &1880s and the Populist Party of the 1890s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4kKEcYu8Eg
Chapter theme continues
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Teddy Roosevelt made a name for himself as a
“trust-buster”. That is, he broke up a few highprofile companies that he said were monopolies
(or trusts). Busting trusts and thus creating
competition was to benefit the average person.
He also obtained huge tracts of land, usually out
West, for parks and conservation.
Roosevelt picked Taft to follow him, but Taft
began to stray from Roosevelt’s ways and the two
split.
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Writers and Politicians began to pinpoint targets
for the progressive attack
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1894 Henry D. Lloyd “Wealth Against Common Wealth”
exposed the corruption of monopoly of the Standard
Oil Company.
1899 Thorsten Veblen “The Theory of the Leisure Class”
criticizing those who made money out of the trusts.
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Socialist promoted a brand of progressivism base
on Christian doctrines to get better housing and
living conditions for the urban poor.
Feminist entered the fight to improve the lives of
families that lived and worked in cities with bad
condition.
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Jane Addams
Lillian Wald
Raking Muck with Muckrakers
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1902 magazines joined in on the bashing of the
trusts.
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Cosmopolitan
Collier’s
Everybody’s
President Roosevelt gave them the name of
“Muckrakers” he found them annoying.
Some of their writings became best-selling books
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These writers exposed the “money trusts,” the
railroad barons, and the corrupt amassing of
American fortunes
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John Spargo’s “The Bitter Cry of the Children” exposed child
labor.
Ray Stannard Baker’s Following the Color Line was about the
illiteracy of Blacks.
Ida M. Tarbell against Standard Oil
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Most well-known woman in muckracking movement, and a
respected business historian.
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Some of the most effective topics of the
muckrakers involved immoral “white slaves”
traffic in women, the unstable slums and the
dreadful amount of industrial accidents.
They believed that in order to cure American
democracy, was more democracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9_FbPwf
Ue4&feature=related
Political Progressivism
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Progressives were usually middle-class men and
women who felt squeezed from the big trusts and
the immigrants that worked for cheap labor.
Two goals
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To use state power to curb state tursts and to stem the
socialist threat by generally improving the common
person’s conditions of life and labor
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1st objective was to regain the power lost to the
“interests”. In order to do that they were in favor
of…
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“Initiative” so that
voters could directly propose legislation.
“Referendums” so that the people could actually vote
on issues that affected them.
“Recalls” would let the voters eliminate previous
elected officials.
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2nd Root-out graft
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Graft: is one thing attached to another by insertion or
implantation so it becomes part of it. Transplant.
Australian ballot was secretly beign intorduced in
the states to ensure the voter records a sincere
choice.
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Bribery was less achievable
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Finally in 1913 17th Amendment established the
direct election of U.S. senators.
Feminists received support from progressives
early 1900’s for Woman suffrage (right to vote)
but did not come yet.
Progressivism in the Cities and States
Progressivism gained a lot in the cities
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For example Galveston, TX used expert-staffed
commissions to manage urban affairs or the citymanager system, that was created to take politics out of
municipal administration.
Urban reformers took on “slumlords,” juvenile
delinquency, and wide-open prostitution.
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Later on this elevated from cities to state level.
1901 Wisconsin, Governor Robert M. La Follette
fought for control from the trusts and returned
power to the people, leading him up to a
progressive Republican leader. Other states
followed
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Oregon and California, which was led by Governor
Hiram W. Johnson.
Charles Evans Hughes, governor of New York,
obtained fame as an investigator of all the wrongdoings
of gas and insurance companies, and coal trusts.
Progressive Women
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Woman could not vote or hold a position in office,
but they were still very active in regards of familyill issues.
Most female progressives related their activities as
extensions of their traditional roles of wife and
mother.
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Keeping children out of mills and sweatshops
Winning pensions for mothers with dependent
children
Making sure food products were safe to eat
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Women’s Trade Union League and the National
Consumers League
Two new federal agencies in the Department of
Labor
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The Children’s Bureau (1912)
The Women’s Bureau (1920)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73K1_pe4QHE
&feature=related
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The fire in 1911 at the Triangle Shirtwaist
Company in New York City, 146, mostly young
women killed from severe burns, or from jumping
off from the eight or ninth story.
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New York city legislator passed stronger laws
regulating the hours and conditions of sweatshops
1917 thirty states established worker’s compensation
laws, this provided the workers with insurance incase of
an injury caused by industrial accidents.
Gradual turn into free enterprise
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Founded by Frances E. Willard Woman’s
Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), AntiSaloon League.
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Formed to go against alchocol (because it was related
with prostitution and thretened family stability).
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1 million women to “make the world homelike”
Lead WCTU into the largest woman’s organiztion in the
world.
In 1919, the 18th Amendment forbade the sale and
drinking of alcohol.
TR’s Square Deal for Labor
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President Roosevelt was touched by the
progressive movement and embraced a “Square
Deal”, a program with the three C’s
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Control of the corporations
Consumer protection
Conservation of natural resources
1902 a strike took place in the anthracite coal
mines of Pennsylvania, 140,000 workers
demanded 20% pay increase and reduction of
working hours from ten to nine hours.
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Mine owners did not pay any attention to the workers and
refused to even negotiate.
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Desperate, and annoyed, Roosevelt threatened to seize the
mines and operate them with federal troops.
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Schools and factories were being shut down, and hospitals were
suffering the winter cold.
A compromise decision gave the minors 10% increase and nine
hours of work.
1903 Department of Commerce and Labor, which was also
a part of the Bureau of Corporations (breaking the
monopoly and making way for the “trust-busting" era).
TR Corrals the Corporations
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The Interstate Commerce Commission created in
1887 did not succeed. So Congress passed the
Elkins Act in 1903, this fined railroads that gave
rebates and the shippers that accepted them.
Hepburn Act, 1906 restricted the free passes of
the railroad.
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Roosevelt believed that there were “good trusts”
and “bad trusts”, so he did not want to go
smashing all of the businesses. For example the
Northern Securities Company, which was
organized by J.P. Morgan and James J. Hill.
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1904, the Supreme Court upheld Roosevelt’s antitrust
suit and told the Northern Securities to vanish, this
made Wall Street really mad but helped Roosevelt’s
image.
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Roosevelt cracked down on over 40 trusts, and he
helped remove the beef, sugar, fertilizer, and
harvester trusts, but in reality, he wasn’t as great of
a trustbuster as he might seem to be.
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His intentions were not to take down the “good trusts,”
but the trusts that did fall under Roosevelts’s regulations
fell symbolically, so that other trusts would reform
themselves.
Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, took
down more trusts.
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1911 when Taft tried to crack down on U.S. Steel, a
company that had personally been allowed by Roosevelt
to absorb the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, the
reaction from Roosevelt was explosive.
Caring for the Consumer
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A lot of the meat companies were preparing meat in very
unsanitary ways and the Europeans were complaining
about the exported meat that they bought from the U.S.
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In 1906, the Meat Inspection Act was passed, which decreed that
the preparation of meat shipped over state lines would be subject
to federal inspection from corral to can. Canned food is
something that the Americans desperately needed.
Pure Food and, Drug Act initiated to prevent the misuse
and mislabeling of foods and anything related to
pharmacy.
Earth Control
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Desert Land act of 1877- under which federal
government sold arid land cheaply.
The act that was successful was the Forest
Reserve Act of 1891which allowed to set aside
public forest as national parks and other reserves.
46 million acres of land were preserved due to
this.
Roosevelt as well as pinchot loved natural
resources and helped initiate conservation
projects.
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Another act that was created was the Newlands
act of 1902 that initiated projects for western
states.
By 1900 a quarter of the nations natural
timberlands remained so Roos. Set aside 125
millions acres. Big accomplishment during his
presidency.
The book of Jack London’s call and the boy scouts
of America were created due to disappearance of
the national frontier.
The “Roosevelt Panic” of 1907
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TR was elected president but he denied it since
he had served two terms by then.
There was a panic in Wall Street where the
financial flurry frightened runs on banks,
suicides, and criminal indictments against
speculators in 1907.
TR was found in the middle but he got out and
the panic died.
In 1908 the Aldrich- Vreeland act which led to
Federal Reserve act of 1913.
The Rough Rider Thunders Out
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In 1908 campaign William Howard Taft was elected as
the successor of TR where he was hoping that Taft would
follow “his policies”.
Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan.
TR went on a lion hunt while Taft was in charge.
He helped many Americans have healthy adult lives, and
ensured that new trusts would fit in capitalism.
TR protected against socialism and opened the eyes of
Americans to see that they share the world with other
nations. So it couldn’t be isolationist.
Theodore Roosevelt and Panama canal
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKtMsCSjJ
K0&feature=related
Traft: A Round Peg in a Square Hole
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Everybody loves a fat man.
Taft was a mild progressive, and a sensitive to
criticism and not liberal as TR.
People were inspired since he graduated 2nd in his
class at Yale.
The Dollar Goes Abroad as Diplomat
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Taft urged Americans to invest in a policy called the
“dollar diplomacy” and called out to the Wall Street to
sluice their dollars to foreign areas.
They wanted to go to the far east where the Panamal
canal was so they went to Japan and Russians who
controlled the railroads of province.
Taft had a secretary of state- Knox who sent a group of
Americans, and foreign bankers to try to buy railroads
and turn them to china.
Japan and Russia denied.
Taft the Trustbuster
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Taft brought 90 suits against the trust during the
four years in office.
In 1911 the supreme court ordered the dissolution
of the mighty standard oil company.
Also Taft decided to press an antitrust suit
against the U.S steel corp.
He now became TR’s antagonist.
Taft Splits the Republican Party
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Two issues split the rep. party: the tariff and the
conservation of lands.
Taft passed a reductive bill led by senator
Aldrich, then later the Payne-Aldrich bill was
passed and Taft signed it betraying his campaign
promises.
It was drawn from the west and it outraged many
people.
Taft called it the best bill ever passed.
Taft
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Taft tried to control the mineral resources by
establishing the Bureau of mines, but all he did
was mess up and fire Pinchot the chief of the
agriculture depart. People were infuriated.
By spring of 1910 the Republican Party was split
wide open.
The democrats emerged with a landslide in the
house.
The Taft-Roosevelt Rupture
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In 1911 the National Progressive Republican
League with La Follete being the leader
TR tried coming back to the rep. party to make
things better but all he won was being the
candidate on the progressive party ticket.
He was pushing La Follete
Roosevelt tasted the bitter cup of defeat but was
on fire to lead a third party crusade.