Political Reform and the Progressive Era

1
Political Reform and the Progressive Era

• Objectives
• Describe reforms designed to end corruption in
  big business.
• Explain the contributions of Presidents T.
  Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson.
• Expound upon the gains of the Womens Movement.
• Illustrate the struggles of various ethnic groups
  in the United States.

1
2
Taming the Spoils System

• Spoils System the practice of rewarding
  political
• supporters with government jobs
• (Ex. Ambassadorships)
• This happened at both the federal and state
  levels.
• As soon as a new executive (president or
  governor) was elected, a whole new set of
  advisors and government employees would be hired.
  
• This results in what is known as a fat
  government.
• Some have connected the assassination of
  President Garfield with this practice.

2
3
Founding of the Civil Service

• The Pendleton Act which stated that the Federal
  government would base employment offers on the
  existence of skills necessary to successfully
  fulfill the duties of a position.
• This was accomplished through a series of exams
  and interviews.
• Passed on January 16, 1883 under President
  Chester Arthur. Authored by Senator George
  Pendleton, a Democrat from Ohio.

3
4
Controlling Big Business

• The Interstate Commerce Act (1887) founded the
  Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC).
• This was the first Federal regulatory commission.
• The original purpose was to regulate the movement
  of goods around the country by railroad, but it
  eventually was extended to the trucking industry
  as well.
• The Commission was allowed to set standard rates
  for any commercial good that had to travel across
  state lines to be delivered.
• Examples shipping services, agricultural goods,
  
• telephone services, oil, timber, etc.

4
5
Controlling Big Business

• The Sherman Antitrust Act was enacted on July 2,
  1890.
• The Act provides
• Every contract, combination in the form of
  trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint
  of trade or commerce among the several States, or
  with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal".
  The Act also provides "Every person who shall
  monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine
  or conspire with any other person or persons, to
  monopolize any part of the trade or commerce
  among the several States, or with foreign
  nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony.

5
6
Controlling Big Business

• Many judges sided with big business making the
  Sherman Antitrust Act more of a paper tiger
  than anything else.
• The Act was successful in reigning in unions,
  however because the federal government could now
  order workers that produced necessary goods and
  services back to work.
• This phrase was interpreted broadly to include
  almost any industry.

6
7
Whats a Progressive?

• Progressives strongly opposed waste and
  corruption, seeking change in regard to worker's
  rights and protection of the ordinary citizen in
  general.
• Initially the movement was successful at local
  level, and then it progressed to state and
  gradually national.
• The Progressives pushed for social justice,
  general equality and public safety, but there
  were contradictions within the movement,
  especially regarding race.

7
8
Robert M. La Follette

• Republican Senator from Wisconsin and a
  progressive reformer.
• He ran for President of the United States as the
  nominee of his own Progressive Party in 1924,
  carrying Wisconsin and 17 of the national
  popular vote.
• La Follette has been called arguably the most
  important and recognized leader of the opposition
  to the growing dominance of corporations over the
  Government.

8
9
The Wisconsin Idea

• La Follette championed numerous progressive
  reforms, including the first workers'
  compensation system, railroad rate reform, direct
  legislation, municipal home rule, open
  government, the minimum wage, non-partisan
  elections, the open primary system, direct
  election of U.S. Senators, women's suffrage, and
  progressive taxation.
• Many of these issues were brought to forefront of
  national politics during his campaign for U.S.
  Senator.
• Muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens began
  covering his campaign and attempted to spread
  vicious rumors about La Follette.
• This only gave him a bigger platform upon which
  to discuss his ideas. His later presidential
  campaign would not have been possible without
  this publicity.

9
10
The Primary System

• Prior to 1903 party leaders were the people
  responsible for choosing candidates.
• Wisconsin developed a system in which people
  would vote to choose electors that would relay
  their choice for a particular candidate.
• By 1917 all but 4 states followed suit.

10
11
Other Election Reforms

• Some states gave their voters even more power by
  adding more ways for them to impact legislation.
• Recall people may vote to remove an elected
  official after they have taken office
• Referendum a proposed legislative act goes to
  the people for final approval, rather than to a
  vote in the legislature.
• Initiative people sign a petition to propose a
  law and then it is either put on the ballot or
  sent to the legislature for ratification.

11
12
Passage of the 16th Amendment

• The government was trying to find a way to
  finance the growth of infrastructure. Congress
  passed a federal income tax into law, but it was
  deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. So
  they wrote an amendment to change the
  Constitution
• Ratified by Congress on February 3, 1913, this
  Amendment allows the Federal Government to levy
  an income tax. The money collected may be
  distributed however the legislature sees fit and
  does not need to be spent proportionally.
• The courts later interpreted the Sixteenth
  Amendment to allow a direct tax on "wages,
  salaries, commissions, etc. without
  apportionment."

12
13
Passage of the 17th Amendment

• It was ratified on April 8, 1913 and was first
  put into effect for the election of 1914.
• It amends Article I, Section 3 of the
  Constitution to provide for the direct election
  of Senators by the people of a state rather than
  their election or appointment by a state
  legislature.
• It also allows the governor of each state, if
  authorized by that state's legislature, to
  appoint a senator in the event of an opening,
  until an election occurs.

13
14
Muckrakers

• The term muckraker most associated with a group
  of American investigative reporters, novelists
  and critics from the late 1800s to early 1900s,
  who investigated and exposed societal issues such
  as conditions in slums and prisons, sweatshops,
  mines and unsanitary conditions in food
  processing plants.
• Muckrakers were often accused of being socialists
  or communists.
• In the early 1900s, muckrakers shed light on such
  issues by writing books and articles for popular
  magazines and newspapers such as Cosmopolitan,
  The Independent, and McClure's.
• President Theodore Roosevelt is credited with
  originating the term 'muckraker.' During a speech
  in 1906 he likened the muckrakers to the Man with
  the Muckrake, a character in John Bunyan's
  Pilgrim's Progress (1678).

14
15
Theodore Roosevelt

• Was born in 1831 to a wealthy merchant family. He
  was the second of five children.
• His younger brother Elliot is the father of
  Eleanor Roosevelt.
• His father had supported Abraham Lincoln his
  mother was a former southern belle with two
  brothers who were officers in the Confederate
  Army.
• As a child he was severely asthmatic, but was
  also said to be hyperactive and mischievous.
• Because of his illness he was home schooled. He
  did very well but was horrible at math.
• In 1876 he graduated from Harvard and then went
  on to Columbia Law School.

15
16
Theodore Roosevelt

• When offered a chance to run for New York
  Assemblyman in 1881, he dropped out of law school
  to pursue his new goal of entering public life.
• He became good friends with fellow Progressive
  Henry Cabot Lodge (they will later become bitter
  enemies).
• Later he would become head of the Civil Service
  Commission under both Benjamin Harrison and
  Grover Cleveland.
• He was named Assistant Secretary of the Navy by
  William McKinley in 1897.
• Later he would accept the post of Vice President
  after his success in the Spanish-American War.

16
17
The Assassination of McKinley

• While greeting a crowd of supporters during the
  Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York
  President William McKinley was shot on September
  6, 1901.
• Leon Frank Czolgosz waited in line with a pistol
  in his right hand concealed by a handkerchief. At
  407 P.M. Czolgosz fired twice at the president.
• The first bullet grazed the president's shoulder.
  The second, however, went through McKinley's
  stomach, colon, and kidney, and finally lodged in
  the muscles of his back.
• At 215 A.M. on September 14, 1901, eight days
  after he was shot, he died from gangrene
  surrounding his wounds. His last words were "It
  is God's way His will be done, not ours. and he
  was buried in Canton, Ohio.
• This left Roosevelt at 42 as the youngest
  President in American history up until this
  point.
• Czolgosz was later found guilty of murder, and
  was executed by electric chair at Auburn Prison
  on October 29, 1901.

17
18
TR and Big Business

• His 20,000-word address to the Congress in
  December 1901, asked Congress to curb the power
  of trusts "within reasonable limits." They did
  not act but Roosevelt did, issuing 44 lawsuits
  against major corporations he was called the
  trust-buster
• The first suit he brought (on behalf of the
  federal government) was against the Northern
  Securities Company in 1902.
• This large railroad trust had been formed earlier
  that year by E. H. Harriman, James J. Hill, J.P.
  Morgan, J. D. Rockefeller, and their associates.
• The company controlled the Northern Pacific
  Railway, Great Northern Railway, Chicago,
  Burlington and Quincy Railroad, and other
  associated lines through a merger.
• After vigorous federal prosecution, the company
  was dissolved according to the 1904 Supreme Court
  ruling in the Northern Securities case, five to
  four.
• The companies were convicted under the Sherman
  Antitrust Act, overturning the previous decision
  of United States v. E. C. Knight Co.
• In that case, the Court ruled that the Sherman
  Antitrust Act was insufficient in regulating that
  monopoly.

18
19
TR Organized Labor

• In 1902 the United Mine Workers of America went
  on strike in Pennsylvania.
• Resulting in a shut down of anthracite mines for
  163 days.
• To avoid a national emergency Roosevelt called
  the mine owners and the labor leaders to the
  White House and negotiated a compromise.
• The miners were granted a 10 pay increase and a
  9-hour day (from the previous 10 hours), but the
  union was not officially recognized and the price
  of coal went up to offset the cost of the pay
  increase.
• In later comments, Roosevelt acknowledged the
  noble intent of labor unions and suggested the
  courts were biased against them.

19
20
TR and Consumers

• Upton Sinclairs novel The Jungle shocked and
  sickened readers with its description of a meat
  packaging plant
• Led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act in
  1906

The meat would be shoveled into carts, and the
man who did the shoveling would not trouble to
lift out a rat even when he saw onethere were
things that went into the sausage in comparison
with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. There was
no place for the men to wash their hands before
they ate their dinner, and so they made a
practice of washing them in the water that was to
be ladled into the sausage. There were the
butt-ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of
corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the
waste of the plants, that would be dumped into
old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under
the system of rigid economy which the packers
enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid
to do once in a long time, and among these was
the cleaning out of the waste barrels. Every
spring they did it and in the barrels would be
dirt and rust and old nails and stale waterand
cartload after cartload of it would be taken up
and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and
sent out to the publics breakfast.
Upton Sinclair
21
TR and Consumers (2)

• Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, Dr. Harvey
  Wiley discovered the unhealthy ingredients people
  were taking as medicine
• Congress passes Pure Food and Drug Act
• Law requires manufacturers to list all
  ingredients on a label

22
TR and Conservation

• TR made conservation a matter of public policy
• TR wanted to protect environment from lumber and
  mining companies
• TR was a great outdoorsman loved to fish and
  hunt and appreciated beauty of the land
• With TRs help, Congress creates U.S. Forest
  Service and sets aside land to be used as a
  national park
• First national park Yellowstone National Park

23
William Howard Taft

• TR decided not to run for president in 1908.
• TR chose Taft to be his successor Taft was
  Secretary of War
• Taft was governor of Philippines did a very
  good job
• Problem Taft was not as energetic or as liberal
  as TR

24
Taft The Good and the Bad

• Good
• Broke up more trusts than TR
• Created agency to control child labor
• Gave government workers 8-hour work day
• Bad
• Tariff increase (Payne-Aldrich Tariff)
• Gave conserved lands to business for development

Uncle Joe Cannon
Nelson Aldrich
Sereno Payne
25
Gifford Pinchot

• He was a progressive who strongly believed in the
  efficiency movement.
• The most economically efficient use of natural
  resources was his goal.
• Pinchot developed a plan by which the forests
  could be developed by private interests, under
  set terms, in exchange for a fee.
• Pinchot made the standards at the Forestry
  Service very high and quickly set off to
  professionalize the forestry industry.
• He was fired from the Forestry Service by Howard
  Taft for speaking out against policies of the
  Department of the Interior that were
  environmentally unsound

25
26
Governor Pinchot

• Governor William Sproul appointed him
  Pennsylvania State Commissioner of Forestry in
  1920.
• Pinchot's aim, however, was to become governor.
  His 1922 campaign for the office concentrated on
  popular reforms government economy, enforcement
  of Prohibition and regulation of public
  utilities. He won and became Pennsylvanias 29th
  governor.
• Pinchot retired at the end of his term in 1927.
  But won a second term in 1930, battling for
  regulation of public utilities, relief for the
  unemployed, and construction of paved roads to
  "get the farmers out of the mud."
• This was the achievement he was most proud of.

26
27
Election of 1912

• Roosevelt endorsed William Howard Taft as the
  Republican candidate in 1908 because he claimed
  to be a genuine "progressive.
• In that election Taft easily defeated three-time
  candidate William Jennings Bryan.
• Many claim that the Progressive movement lost
  steam under Taft because he was not as
  charismatic a leader as Roosevelt. This lead many
  to leave the party to support the newly liberal
  Democrats.
• In 1910, Roosevelt and Taft broke off their
  friendship. Roosevelt lost the Republican
  nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election
  on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket.
• He beat Taft in the popular vote.
• This split caused Democrat Woodrow Wilson to
  pull ahead because neither could gain enough
  electoral votes to win.

27
28
Wilson and New Freedom

• Wilson continued the work begun by Roosevelt in
  trust-busting.
• He spoke to Congress urging them to revive the
  free enterprise system and to wake up the
  economy.
• In 1914, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was
  founded.
• This agency investigates reports of fraud by
  businesses.
• Later, Wilson signed the Clayton Antitrust Act
  which reiterated the legislative intent of the
  Sherman Act while limiting the use of that act to
  regulation of unions.

Library of Congress (111-SC-4984)
28
29
The Womens Movement

• In July 1848 more than 300 men and women
  assembled in Seneca Falls, New York, for the
  nation's first women's rights convention.
• On the first day, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
  presented the organizers' Declaration of
  Sentiments and Resolutions (patterned after the
  Declaration of Independence).
• The Seneca Falls declaration held that "all men
  and women" are created equal and are endowed with
  inalienable rights including life, liberty, and
  the pursuit of happiness.
• The 12 resolutions of the Declaration of
  Sentiments called for the repeal of laws that
  enforced unequal treatment of women, the
  recognition of women as the equals of men, the
  granting of the right to vote, the right for
  women to speak in churches, and the equal
  participation of women with men in "the various
  trades, professions, and commerce."

29
30
Suffrage

• Connections made at the convention eventually
  lead to the creation of the National Womens
  Suffrage Association.
• Suffrage was granted in the new western states
  in the late 1800s mainly because of the low
  population and the need for registered voters for
  the rights of incorporation.
• As the need for more income grew so too did the
  number of women in the workforce, nearly 5
  million by 1900.
• This only added fuel to the suffrage fire because
  now women were subjected to direct taxation and
  were still not allowed to vote.
• They therefore had TAXATION WITHOUT
  REPRESENTATION!

30
31
Leaders of the Suffrage Movement

• Susan B. Anthony arrested for illegal voting
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton one of the first women
  to become a lawyer
• They were the first generation leaders of the
  National Womens Suffrage Association (NWSA)

32
Next Generation of Womans Suffrage Leaders

• Carrie Chapman Catt strategy to win state by
  state approval met with leaders in Washington
  many times
• Alice Paul grass roots support through protest
  and civil disobedience

33
New Opportunities for Women

• Prior to the emergence of a solidified womens
  movement, the entrance of women into certain
  professions was limited.
• While women could study to become professionals,
  many states refused to license them.
• Around the same time, womens organizations which
  had once been only social in nature (The
  Daughters of the American Revolution, The
  Womens Auxiliary, etc.) began to take on
  political stances.

33
34
Womens Clubs

• Women joined clubs to read books and share ideas
• Clubs raised money for libraries, schools and
  parks
• African American women formed own clubs to battle
  against segregation
• Florence Kelley investigates sweatshop
  conditions and organized boycotts of goods
  produced by factories that employed children

35
Prohibition

• In 1874 a group of women, lead by Frances
  Willard, formed the Womens Christian Temperance
  Union (WCTU).
• They held meetings with officials which revealed
  the evils of alcohol. According to this group
  alcohol was a direct CAUSE of each of the
  following societal ills
• Domestic Violence
• Child Abuse
• Unemployment
• Murder
• Theft
• Vagrancy
• After hearing this convincing argument, and being
  pressured by their constituents, Congress passed
  the 18th Amendment.

35
36
The 18th Amendment

• The "Volstead Act," was passed by Congress over
  President Wilson's veto on October 28, 1918 and
  established the legal definition of intoxicating
  liquor and established the prohibition of alcohol
  in the United States.
• Section 1. the manufacture, sale, or
  transportation of intoxicating liquors within,
  the importation thereof into, or the exportation
  thereof from the United States for beverage
  purposes is hereby prohibited.
• It is the only amendment to the United States
  Constitution to ever be repealed (by the
  Twenty-first Amendment).

36
37
Carrie Nation

• Carrie Nation led a radical response to sale of
  alcohol
• First marriage ended because her husband became
  alcoholic
• She was generous to needy and poor visited
  prisoners in jail
• Came to public attention when she used bricks and
  hatchets to close down bars in Kansas
• Her actions led to several beatings and jail time
• She collapsed during a lecture on the evils of
  alcohol and died several months later
• She was also a supporter of womens suffrage

38
Unexpected Consequence

• The passage of the 18th Amendment did little to
  stop the flow of alcohol
• Made alcohol more attractive (fun doing bad
  things!)
• Speakeasies Hidden bars in cities operating
  against the law
• Bootleggers - those who smuggled alcohol across
  state lines
• Organized Crime large scale criminal operations
• Al Capone famous gangster who made millions off
  of illegal booze jailed for tax evasion
• FBI in charge of enforcing prohibition

FBI agent Elliot Ness
39
Challenges Facing African Americans

• Jim Crow laws allowed for an increased period of
  discrimination against African Americans to exist
  following the Civil War Amendments.
• Discrimination in housing, lending, education and
  employment were particularly unfair in both the
  North and South.
• Redlining, or the informal segregation of where
  certain groups are allowed to live, started in
  this period and some say that it still exists
  today.

39
40
Booker T. Washington

• Became most prominent African American of his
  time
• Taught himself to read
• Founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama
• Wanted blacks to learn a trade and move up
  gradually (economic power social equality)
• View popular among white leaders

Tuskegee Institute today
41
W.E.B. Du Bois

• First African American to receive PhD from
  Harvard University
• Criticized Washingtons approach to equality
• Believed blacks had to fight for their rights in
  the courts
• In 1909, helped found the NAACP an organization
  to help blacks obtain equal rights in the courts

42
Other Famous African Americans

• George Washington Carver made great strides in
  the field of genetics. His successful cross
  breeding of peanut plants in the South saved the
  industry from ruin.
• Sarah Walker created a line of hair care products
  for African American women and became the first
  American woman to earn more than 1 million.
• Ida B. Wells was a civil rights advocate and an
  early women's rights advocate active in the Woman
  Suffrage Movement. She lead the crusade to have
  the practice of lynching outlawed. ,

42
43
Challenges Facing Mexican Americans

• In the Southwest Mexican migrant farmers had been
  crossing the border for work for decades.
• It was not until around 1900 that things got so
  bad in Mexico that they were compelled to stay.
• They were often paid very little and, like
  African Americans, were denied housing and
  education.
• Many Mexican Americans settled in Texas and
  southern California.
• The population of Los Angeles tripled between
  1910 and 1920 as a result.

43
44
Response by Mexican Americans

• Sought to preserve language and culture
• Barrios ethnic neighborhoods
• Mutualistas mutual aid societies
• Paid for insurance
• Paid for legal advice
• Raised money for sick and needy

45
Challenges Facing Asian Americans

• Following the passage of the Chinese Exclusion
  Act of 1882 many West Coast companies started to
  recruit workers from other Asian countries like
  Japan and the Philippines.
• They too were forced to endure discrimination in
  housing, lending and education.
• Many in the western states did not dissociate
  these new immigrants from the Chinese who had
  taken their jobs on the railroad and they
  engaged in anti-Asian protests.

45
46
Gentlemens Agreement

• In 1906, San Francisco forced Asian children to
  attend separate schools from whites
• Japan protested the move and created an
  international crisis
• Unions pressured TR to limit Japanese immigration
• Gentlemens Agreement reached in 1907
• Japan would stop sending workers to U.S.
• U.S. stop the segregated schools

47
Religious Minorities

• As the number of immigrants from southern and
  eastern Europe increased, so too did the number
  of Roman Catholics in the United States.
• Groups like the Anti-Catholic American Protective
  Association lobbied Congress for quotas on
  Catholic immigrants.
• People of the Jewish faith faced stereotypes of
  being greedy and untrustworthy.
• Many formed small communities within larger
  cities so they could provide for themselves and
  not have to be degraded by other prejudiced
  business owners.
• Examples Little Italy, Greenwich Village, etc.

47