The Progressive Movement

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The Progressive Movement
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The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of
the next.

• Helen Keller
• Ardent socialist and reformer.

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Socialist beliefs

• Reaction to social inequities.
• Eugene Debs 1908 420,000 1912
  901,235

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Foundation for change

• Urbanization
• Industrialization
• Immigration
• No foreign conflicts.
• Social conscience

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Muckrakers

• Journalism (such as )
• McClures, Cosmopolitan, Colliers, Everbodys.
• What did they do and believe?
• Exposure of public wrongs.
• More democracy would cure the ills.

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Social Justice

• Development of professional social workers.
• Welfare and charity work should be done by
  professionals.
• The building of Settlement Houses.
• Raise the standard of living by providing
  schools, day care centers and cultural enrichment
  programs.
• Child Labor Laws

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Social Justice cont

• Support for the goals of organized labor.
• Eight hour work day, improved health and safety
  conditions, workmans compensation, minimum wage,
  Unionization.
• Prohibition laws.
• Eighteenth Amendment (1919)
• Prohibition Party

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Attacks against the rich.

• Henry Demarest Lloyd -
• Wealth against Commonwealth. Standard Oil.
  Bloated Trusts.
• Thorstein Veblen -
• The Theory of the Leisure Class. predatory
  wealth conspicuous consumption.
• Jacob A. Riis -
• How the other half lives. New York slums.

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Democracy in action

• Initiative
• A procedure whereby ordinary citizens could
  propose laws for consideration by their state
  legislatures.
• Referendum
• A procedure whereby citizens could vote directly
  on whether to approve public laws.
• Recall
• A public official could be removed from office
  by a direct vote of the citizens.

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More Demo

• Secret Ballot
• Public voting and voter records were kept until
  this time.
• Direct primary
• Party candidates chosen by rank-and-file party
  members instead of party bosses.
• Direct election of US Senators
• Seventeenth Amendment. (1913)
• Womens Suffrage
• Nineteenth Amendment. (1920)

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Efficiency

• City manager system.
• Paid professional administrators ran the
  day-day affairs of the city.
• Centralization of decision-making process.
• Streamline government.
• Movements to eliminate government corruption.

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Regulation of Large Corporations and Monopolies

• Laissez-Faire
• Trust-busting
• Suppression of competition.
• Regulation
• Some large corporations or monopolies are
  inevitable and maybe even desirable, but they
  need supervision.
• Socialism
• Government should acquire ownership of large
  corporations and run them for the public good.

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Odds and ends

• TRs Square Deal.
• Panic of 1907.
• Conservation.
• Election of 1908.
• Taft as president.
• Dollar diplomacy.