CHAPTER 20: Crusade for Social Order and Reforms

Transcription

1 CHAPTER 20: Crusade for Social Order and Reforms

2 Objectives: o We will examine the progressive movement drive for temperance reform. o We will examine the growing interest in socialism because of big business. o We will examine the progressive movement addressing the issues of big business.

3 Pro_20:1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.

4 TEMPERANCE CRUSADE: o Many progressives considered the elimination of alcohol from American life a necessary step in restoring order to society. o Scarce wages vanished as workers spent hours in saloons. o Drunkenness caused crime and domestic violence.

5 TEMPERANCE CRUSADE: o Working-class wives and mothers hoped through temperance to reform male behavior and thus improve women s lives. o Employers, regarded alcohol as an impediment to industrial efficiency. o Workers often missed time on the job because of drunkenness or came to the factory intoxicated.

6 TEMPERANCE CRUSADE: o Temperance had been a major reform movement before the Civil War, mobilizing large numbers of people in a crusade with strong evangelical overtones.

7 TEMPERANCE CRUSADE: o In 1873, the movement developed new strength. o Temperance advocates formed the Women s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), led after 1879 by Francis Willard. o By 1911 it had 245,000 members and had become the single largest women s organization in American history to that point.

8 TEMPERANCE CRUSADE: o Many Immigrants and working class workers opposed temperance. o But pressure for prohibition grew steadily through the first decades of the new century. o America s entry into World War I and the moral fervor it unleashed, provided the last push to the advocates of prohibition.

9 TEMPERANCE CRUSADE: o Despite substantial opposition from immigrant and working class workers, pressure for prohibition grew steadily through the first decades of the new century. o America s entry into World War I and the moral fervor it unleashed, provided the last push to the advocates of prohibition.

10 TEMPERANCE CRUSADE: o In 1917, there was strong support of rural fundamentalists who opposed alcohol on moral and religious grounds. o Progressive advocates of prohibition steered through Congress a constitutional amendment embodying their demands. o Ultimately the Eighteenth Amendment became law to take effect in January 1920.

11 Immigration Restrictions: o Virtually all reformers agreed that growing immigration population had created social problems. o But there was wide disagreement on how best to respond. o Some progressives believed that the proper approach was to help the new residents adapt to American society. o Others argued that efforts at assimilation had failed and that the only solution was to limit the flow of arrivals.

12 Immigration Restrictions: o New scientific theories were established in regards to immigration. o Eugenics was introduced where the introduction of immigrants into America society was polluting the nation s racial stock. o Eugenics advocated the forced sterilization of the mentally retarded, criminals, and others.

13 Immigration Restrictions: o But those who believed in Eugenics also spread the belief that human inequalities were hereditary. o Thus, immigration was contributing to the multiplication of the unfit. o The thought that Northern European were superior genetic stock and that Southern and Eastern Europeans were inferior and implied that immigration should be restricted by nationality.

14 CHALLENGING THE CAPITALST ORDER: o Radical critiques of the capitalist system drew its most support in American history between the periods of 1900 and o Although never a force to rival or even seriously threaten the two major parties, the Socialist Party of America grew during these years into a force of considerable strength.

15 CHALLENGING THE CAPITALST ORDER: o In 1912, its durable leader and perennial presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs received nearly 1 million ballots. o Strongest in the urban immigrant communities particularly Germans and Jews. o Also attracted substantial number of Protestants farmers in the South and Midwest

16 CHALLENGING THE CAPITALST ORDER: o Virtually all socialists agreed on the need for basic structural changes in the economy, but they differed widely on the extent on how to achieve them. o Some believed in working for reform through electoral politics, others favored militant direct action.

17 CHALLENGING THE CAPITALST ORDER: o Among the militants was the radical labor Union the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). o The IWW advocated a single union for all workers and abolition of the wage slave system. o It rejected political action in favor of strikes, especially the general strike.

18 CHALLENGING THE CAPITALST ORDER: o But World War I dramatically weakened the socialists. o They had refused to support the war effort, and a growing wave of antiradicalism subjected them to enormous harassment and persecution.

19 Decentralization and Regulation: o Most progressives held to the belief that the capitalist system can be reformed. o They hoped that rather than a nationalized basic industries, many reformers hoped to restore the economy to a more human scale.

20 Decentralization and Regulation: o They argued that the Federal Government should work to break up the largest combinations and enforce a balance between the need for bigness and the need for competition.

21 Decentralization and Regulation: o This was advocated by Louis D. Brandeis, a brilliant lawyer and later justice of the Supreme Court who wrote widely about the curse of bigness. o Brandeis and his supporters opposed bigness in part because they considered it inefficient.

22 Decentralization and Regulation: o But their opposition had a moral basis as well. o Bigness was a threat not just to efficiency but to freedom. o It limited the ability of individuals to control their own destinies. o It encouraged abuses of power. o Government must regulate competition in such a way to ensure that large corporations did not emerge.