PROGRESSIVISM AND THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT

1. PROGRESSIVISM AND THEREPUBLICAN PRESIDENT APUSH CHAPTER 29

2. Introduction • At the beginning of the 20th Century, the ethnically and racially mixed American people were engulfed by a reform movement • The new crusaders called themselves progressives • They waged war on many evils including monopolies, corruption, inefficiency, and social injustice

4. Progressive Roots • Well before 1900, politicians and writers had begun to pinpoint targets for the progressive attack • Henry Demarest Lloyd assailed the Standard Oil Company in 1894 • Wealth Against Commonwealth •  Jacob A. Riis shocked middle-class Americans in 1890 with • How the Other Half Lives which described the dark and dirty slums of New York

5. How the Other Half Lives Riis’s book showed the plight of the urban poor, mostly immigrants who were forced to live in small cramped spaces that lacked adequate sanitation or ventilation

7. Raking Muck with the Muckrakers • Popular magazines, Muckrakers, began to appear in American newsstands in 1902 • They exposed the corruption and scandal that the public loved to hate • These were very popular with the average citizen, but much less so with the wealthy

8. Raking Muck with the Muckrakers • In 1902, New York reporter, Lincoln Steffens, launched a series of articles in McClure's • Shame of the Cities • Unmasked the corrupt alliance between big business and municipal government

9. Raking Muck with the Muckrakers • Ida Tarbell, published a devastating but factual depiction of the Standard Oil Company • David G. Phillips published a series, "The Treason of the Senate" in Cosmopolitan • Charged that 75 of the 90 senators did not represent the people but they rather represented railroads and trusts

10. Wrote an expose on the unethical biz of Standard Oil Wanted govt to regulate biz Did not support women’s suffrage Father put out of biz be Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Ida Tarbell

11. Raking Muck with the Muckrakers • Some of the most effective attacks of the muckrakers were directed at social evils • Ray Stannard • Following the Color Line (1908), showed the continued suppression of blacks in America • John Spargo • The Bitter Cry of the Children (1906), detailed the abuses of child labor

12. Political Progressivism • Progressive reformers were mainly middle-class men and women, who sought 2 goals • To use state power to control the trusts • To stem the socialist threat by generally improving the common person's conditions of life and labor • To allow these deplorable conditions to continue posed a threat to democracy and capitalism

13. Political Progressivism • Progressives wanted to regain the power that had slipped from the hands of the people into those of the "interests.“ • Progressive Political Reforms • Direct primary elections • Initiative • Voters could directly propose legislation themselves • Referendum • Would place laws on ballots for final approval by the people • Recall • would enable the voters to remove faithless corrupt officials • As a result of pressure from the public's progressive reformers, the 17th Amendment was passed to the Constitution in 1913.  It established the direct election of U.S. senators.

14. Australian Ballot • A printed ballot that bears the names of all candidates and the texts of propositions and is distributed to the voter at the polls and marked in secret. Also called secret ballot. • listing candidates for election to public office and issues, levies, etc., distributed inside the polling place to be marked by the voter in secret: it originated in Australia and is widely used in the U.S.

15. Progressive Governors • Robert M. LaFollette • Governor of Wisconsin • Took power back from big business (1901) • Emerged as a leading figure in the Progressive movement • Hiram W. Johnson • Governor of California • Broke the power of the Southern Pacific Railroad in state politics (1910)

16. “Fighting Bob” Governor, senator, & congressman, Presidential candidate pushed aside by T.R. Fought & exposed political corruption And the “little guy” Came from a poor family Worked his way through college Refused to be corrupted La Follette

17. Progressive Women • A crucial focus for women's activism was the settlement house movement • Settlement houses exposed middle-class women to poverty, political corruption, and intolerable working and living conditions • Most female progressives defended their new activities as an extension of their traditional roles of wife and mother

18. Muller v Oregon • Female workers require special protection (limits hours of work in laundry) • Women workers view? • Feminist view?

20. Fought for women’s suffrage through an amendment to the constitution Formed protest in front of the white house 4 week hunger strike in jail Quaker, educated, from the West Founded her own organization Many thought women would become too masculine if got right to vote, Women’s role in WWI wins the vote Alice Paul/Women’s Suffrage

22. Progressive Women • Female activists worked through various organizations • Women's Trade Union League • National Consumers League • Led by Florence Kelly (1899) • Mobilized female consumers to pressure government for laws safeguarding women and children in the workplace

24. 1911 Triangle Shirt Waist Factory Fire 146 Die • One of the Triangle factories was located in the ninth story of a building overlooking New York City's Washington Place. A stairway led down to Washington Place. On another side of the ninth floor, the factory overlooked Greene Street. A stairway led down to the street, and also up to the roof. On March 25, 1911, a fire began on the eighth floor and came up through the Greene Street stairwell into Triangle's ninth floor, where the employees were busy at work. As smoke and fire filled the shop from the Greene Street side, the frightened women ran to the Washington Place exit, only to discover that the door was locked. They were trapped inside a burning building. • Effects: NY passes stronger laws regulating hours and conditions, many other states do the same. 1917, 30 states have worker’s comp laws=more responsibility for the employers

29. Ida B. Wells • Btw 1890-1899 there was an average of 187 lynchings, 80% in south, 70% of victims were black • She wrote articles about it printed in Memphis Free Speech, angry mob destroys presses, she flees to Chicago, writes book, eventually anti-lynching laws passed on Federal level

31. Booker T. Washington W.E.B. Du Bois Book, The Souls of Black Folk, spoke of how rights gained after Civil War were stripped away Wants fight to get rights and use rights like voting to gain full equality Argues for college education and Talented 10 to stand up Niagara Movement1905-Helps find NAACP to fight through the courts • Educator, was a former slave, wrote book, Up From Slavery • Proposed concentrating on economic goals rather that legal and political goals for equality. • Famous speech: Atlanta Compromise, urged to learn trade, education then fight for full rights

32. Plessy v Fergusan The Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson endorsed “separate but equal” facilities for African Americans. This ruling established the legal basis for discrimination in the South for over 50 years.

33. NAACP • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People • To fight for civil rights through the court system

34. TR: The Progressive President • President Roosevelt believed in the progressive reform • TR enacted a "Square Deal" program that consisted of 3 parts • Control of the corporations • Consumer protections • Conservation of natural resources

35. TR Corrals the Corporations • The ICC had been created in 1887, but was largely ineffective • Railroad Barons were able to maintain high shipping rates because they controlled the ICC Board • Had sympathetic justices on the Supreme Court

36. New Restrictions on the Railroads • Elkins Act (1903) • Allowed for heavy fines to be placed on railroads that gave rebates and on the shippers that accepted them • Hepburn Act (1906) • Restricted free passes • Extended the reach of the ICC • Express Companies • Sleeping Car Companies • Pipelines

37. TR and the Northern Securities Company • The Progressive movement needed a President to take on the Trusts • In 1902, President Roosevelt challenged the Northern Securities Company • Was a Railroad trust company • They sought to achieve a monopoly of the railroads in the Northwest • The Supreme Court upheld the President and the trust was dissolved

38. TR the “Trust Buster”

39. Consumer Protection • After botulism was found in American meats, foreign governments threatened to ban all American meat imports • Backed by the public, President Roosevelt passed the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 • The public had been sickened by the Sinclair novel, The Jungle • The act stated that the preparation of meat shipped over state lines would be subject to federal inspection • Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 • Designed to prevent the adulteration and mislabeling of foods and pharmaceuticals

40. Conservation • Desert Land Act of 1887 • The federal government sold dry land cheaply on the condition that the purchaser would irrigate the soil within 3 years • Forest Reserve Act of 1891 • Authorized the president to set aside public forests as national parks and other reserves

42. Conservation • In 1900 Roosevelt, attempting to preserve the nation's shrinking forests, set aside 125 million acres of land in federal reserves • TR also pushed for • Multiple-use resource management • Sought to combine recreation, sustained-yield logging, watershed protection, and summer stock grazing on the same expanse of federal land • Many westerners soon realized how to work with federal conservation programs and not resist the federal management of natural resources

43. Conservation • President Roosevelt, a naturalist and rancher, convinced Congress to pass the Newlands Act of 1902 • Authorized the federal government to collect money from the sale of public lands in western states and • Then use these funds for the development of irrigation projects

44. Financial Panic of 1907 • A panic descended upon Wall Street in 1907 • The financial world blamed the panic on President Roosevelt for unsettling the industries with his anti-trust tactics • Congress passed the Aldrich-Vreeland Act in 1908 • Authorized national banks to issue emergency currency backed by various kinds of collateral • Paves way for Federal Reserve Act

46. The Rough Rider Thunders Out • Election of 1908 • Republican Party chose William Howard Taft • Democratic Party chose William Jennings Bryan • Taft won easily • TR’s Legacy • Enlarged the power and prestige of the presidential office • Helped shape the Progressive movement • Opened the eyes of Americans to the fact that they shared the world with other nations

47. The Taft campaign created "Billy Possum" as a character to represent "William Howard Taft". Somehow the "possum" was never as popular as the "teddy bear". Here the tag on the animal on the left says "Teddy Bear" and the tag on the right animal says "Billy Possum". The animals shake paws as the "possum" representing Taft walks toward the Capital Dome representing the incoming administration.

48. Taft as President • Taft quickly showed that he was no Roosevelt • He was not the dashing political leader TR was • He adopted a passive attitude towards Congress

49. “I once got up on the street trolly and gave my seat to two ladies!”

50. The Dollar Goes Abroad as a Diplomat • Taft encouraged Wall Street bankers to invest in foreign areas of strategic interest to the United States • New York bankers thus strengthened American defenses and foreign policies, • This “dollar” strategy brought great prosperity to America