Brinkley, Chapter 20 Notes

Transcription

1 Brinkley Progressives Target a Variety of Problems Political Reform Government regulations to help consumers Chapter 20 Women's Suffrage Meat Packing The Progressives Reduce income gap between the rich and poor Honest Government "Trust Busting" Social Welfare Laws to help children Harsh working and living conditions Belief in Progress Progressive Governors Take Charge Progressives believed in Progress - that society was capable of improvement and that continued growth and advancement were the nation's destiny. Muckrakers were crusading journalists who directed public attention toward social, economic, and political injustices. They exposed scandal, corruption, and injustice. Muckraker Ida Tarbell Helen Hunt Jackson Jacob Riis Upton Sinclair Written Work Focus The History of Standard Oil Trusts A Century of Dishonor How the Other Half Lives The Jungle Lincoln Steffans The Shame of the Cities Ida B. Wells Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in all its Phases Treatment of Indians New York City's tenements Conditions of meat packing factories Corruption of city governments Jim Crow, Chesapeake & Ohio Railroads Statehouse Progressivism The most celebrated state-level reformer was Robert La Follette of Wisconsin. Elected in 1900 Under his leadership, Wisconsin progressives won approval of direct primaries, initiatives, and referendums. RRs and utilities were regulated and had to pay higher corporate income taxes Passed laws to regulate the workplace and provide compensation for laborers injured on the job. Instituted graduated taxes inherited fortunes Improved public education Triangle Shirtwaist Fire In the early 1900s, the United States had the highest rate of industrial accidents in the world. Reformers began looking for ways to circumvent the boss controlled legislatures by increasing the power of the electorate. Two of the most important changes were innovations first proposed by Populists in the 1890s: the initiative and the referendum. In March, 1911 a terrible fire swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York. Initiative - new legislation is submitted directly to the voters in general elections to vote on 146 workers, mostly women women, died. Outraged Progressives intensified their calls for reform. Referendum - provided a method by which actions of the legislature could be returned to the electorate for approval. The electorate may uphold or reverse the legislature's decision. The direct primary and the recall were other efforts to limit the power of party and improve the quality of elected officials. Recall - Voters can remove a public official from office at a special election, which could be called after a sufficient number of citizens had signed a petition. The primary election removed the selection of candidates from the bosses to the people. In the South, it was also an effort to limit black voting - since primary voting, many white southerners believed, would be easier to control than general elections. By 1915, every state in the nation instituted primary elections for some offices. A state commission studied the background of the fire and the general conditions of the industrial workplace. By 1914, the commission issued a series of reports calling for major reforms in working conditions. The report itself was a progressive document - based on the testimony of experts and filled with statistics and technical data. When its recommendations reached the NY legislature, its most effective supporters were Tammany Hall Democrats: Robert Wagner and Al Smith. Pushed through a series of labor laws imposing strict regulations on factory owners and established effective mechanisms for enforcement. Many states set up workers' compensation laws. 1

2 The Social Gospel Growing outrage at social and economic injustice committed many reformers to the pursuit of social reform. That helped create the rise of the "Social Gospel", the effort to make Christianity the basis of social reform. Walter Rauschenbush - "Father of the Social Gospel" His book, Christianity and the Social Crisis outlined the Social Gospel. He believed people could make society "the kingdom of God." Christian principles must be translated into actions that promote compassion, justice, and social change. Settlement House Movement Urban reformers believed the home environment influenced individual development. Progressives established Settlement Houses to help immigrant families adapt to the language and customs of America. Women from the educated middle class staffed Settlement Homes. The most famous was Hull House in Chicago led by Jane Addams. Settlement houses provided college women with an environment and a role that society considered "appropriate" for unmarried women. The settlement houses helped spawn the profession of social work. The Social Gospel movement was chiefly concerned with redeeming the nation's cities. The Social Gospel was never the dominant element in the movement for urban reform but the engagement of religion with reform helped bring to Progressivism a powerful moral commitment to redeem the lives of the poor. The Salvation Army was one example of fusing religion with reform. The "New Woman" The phenomenon of the "new woman" was a product of social and economic changes in both the private and public spheres: Almost all income-producing activity moved out of the home and into the factory or the office. Women were having fewer children and children were beginning school at earlier ages. For wives and mothers who did not work for wages, the home was less of an all-consuming place. More women began to look for activities outside the home. Women's clubs began largely as cultural organizations to provide middle and upper class women with an outlet for their intellectual energies. Non-controversial activities: planted trees, supported schools, and worked in settlement houses. Clubwomen won passage of laws regulating working conditions of women and children, regulating the food and drug industries, reformed policies towards Indian tribes, applied new standards to urban housing, and Prohibition. African Americans and Reform The question of race was relatively non existent to White Americans, but African Americans benefitted from the Progressive movement. African Americans faced greater obstacles than any other group in challenging their own oppressed status and seeking reform. Many embraced the message of Booker T. Washington to work for immediate self-improvement rather than long range social change. Argued that African Americans needed to accommodate themselves to segregation. They should not work to overturn Jim Crow laws but establish themselves as honorable and hard-working citizens. Worked hard to make the Tuskegee Institute well known for providing an "industrial (vocational) education." He believed this would help prepare African Americans for citizenship. Most clubs excluded blacks and so African Americans formed clubs of their own. W.E.B. du Bois NAACP Founded, 1909 Born in Massachusetts and earned a Ph.D from Harvard. 4 years after the launching of the Niagara Movement, members joined with sympathetic whites and formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk - a powerful challenge to Washington. Du Bois accused Washington of encouraging white efforts to impose segregation and of limiting the aspirations of his race. The new organization led the drive for equal rights. Among the many issues that engaged the NAACP and other African American organizations was lynching in the South. Rather then content themselves with education at the trade and agricultural schools, Du Bois advocated, talented blacks should aspire to the professions. They should, above all, fight for their civil rights and demand them immediately. In 1905, Du Bois and a group of his supporters met at Niagara Falls and launched the Niagara Movement. The most effective crusader was journalist Ida B. Wells Barnett. Wells was born a slave in MS. Moved to Memphis, TN and worked as a school teacher. Bought a newspaper and renamed it Free Speech and wrote many stories about the mistreatment of blacks. Eventually, Wells was run out of town by local whites. She spent the rest of her life educating the world of what she called "legalized murder" 2

3 Roosevelt Becomes President After McKinley's assassination in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became president. Roosevelt was the first Progressive President (Taft, then Wilson). Roosevelt became a champion of cautious, moderate change. Reform was a vehicle for protecting American society against more radical challenges, not for remaking society. Roosevelt allied himself with progressives who urged regulation (but not destruction) of trusts. At the heart of his policy was a desire to win for government the power to investigate the activities of corporations and publicize the results. In 1902, he ordered the Justice Department to invoke the Sherman Antitrust Act against a great new RR company in the Northwest, the Northern Securities Company, a $400 million enterprise pieced together by JP Morgan and others. Roosevelt and Labor Roosevelt's view of government as an impartial regulatory mechanism shaped Roosevelt's policy toward labor. When a bitter 1902 by the United Mine Workers endangered coal supplies for the coming winter, Roosevelt asked both the operators and the miners to accept impartial federal arbitration. Roosevelt was not a trustbuster at heart. He had no serious commitment to reverse the prevailing trend toward economic concentration. History remembers him as a "trust buster" because he broke up 45 trusts. When the mine owners balked, Roosevelt threatened to send federal troops to seize the mines. The operators finally relented. Arbitrators awarded the strikers a 10% wage increase and a 9 hour day, although no recognition of their union - less than they had wanted but more than they would likely have won without Roosevelt's intervention. The "Square Deal" In the 1904 campaign Roosevelt boasted to provide everyone with a "Square Deal". His first target was the RR industry. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 had been an early effort to regulate the RR industry, but the courts had sharply limited its influence. Food and Drugs Roosevelt, inspired by Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, pressured Congress to enact the Pure Food and Drug Act which restricted the sale of dangerous or ineffective medicines The Hepburn RR Regulation Act of 1906 sought to restore some regulatory authority to the government by giving the ICC the power to oversee RR rates. In 1907, he proposed even more stringent reforms: an 8 hour day for workers, broader compensation for victims of industrial accidents, inheritance and income taxes, and regulation of the stock market. The Meat Inspection Act helped eliminate many diseases once transmitted in impure meat. Conservative opposition blocked much of his agenda, widening the gap between the president and the conservative wing of his party. Roosevelt and the Environment Roosevelt's position on conservation contributed to the gap. Roosevelt and the Environment Using executive powers, he restricted private development on millions of acres of undeveloped land - most of it in the West - by adding them to the previously modest forest systems. Despite his sympathy with conservation, Roosevelt also shared some of the concerns of the Naturalists - those committed to protecting the natural beauty of the land and the health of the wildlife from human intrusion. When conservatives on Congress restricted his authority over public lands in 1907, Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot (1st director of the US Forest Service), seized all the forests and many of the water power sites still in the public domain before the bill became law. At the beginning of his presidency, Roosevelt spent 4 days with John Muir in the Sierras. Muir was the nation's leading preservationist and founder of the Sierra Club. Roosevelt was the first president to take an active interest in the new and struggling American conservation movement. In the early 20th century, conservationists promoted policies to protect land for carefully managed development. The Old Guard eagerly supported public reclamation and irrigation projects. In 1902, Roosevelt backed the National Reclamation Act - provided federal funds for the construction of dams, reservoirs, and canals in the West - projects that would open new lands for cultivation and provide cheap electric power. Roosevelt also added significantly to the still young National Park System, whose purpose was to protect public land from any exploitation or development at all. 3

4 Panic of 1907 Western Progressives The American West produced some of the most notable progressive leaders of the time: Hiram Johnson (CA), George Norris (NE) and William Borah (ID). Also known as the Knickerbocker Crisis The New York Stock Exchange fell almost 50% from Panic occurred, and there were numerous runs on banks. The 1907 panic eventually spread throughout the nation when many state and local banks and businesses entered bankruptcy. Many important issues to the West required action beyond the state level. Disputes over water, land grants, railroads, forests, etc. required the attention of the federal government. Huge areas of the West remained public lands controlled by DC. Much of the growth of the West was a result of federally funded dams, water projects, and other infrastructure undertakings. Despite some reforms government still had little control over the industrial economy. Primary causes of the run include a retraction of credit by a number of New York City banks and a loss of confidence among depositors, exacerbated by deregulation of financial markets. Theodore Roosevelt National Park (ND) In October 1907 a failed attempt to corner the market on stock of the United Copper Company started the bank failures. When the bid failed, banks that lent money to the cornering scheme suffered runs that later spread to affiliated banks and trusts, leading to the downfall of the Knickerbocker Trust Company New York City's third-largest trust. The collapse of the Knickerbocker spread fear throughout the city's trusts as regional banks withdrew reserves from NYC banks. Panic extended across the nation as vast numbers of people withdrew deposits from their regional banks. Panic of 1907 Panic of 1907 By November 1907, a further crisis emerged when a large brokerage firm borrowed heavily using the stock of Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TC&I) as collateral. Conservatives blamed Roosevelt's "mad" economic policies (The Hepburn Act led to a devaluation of RR stocks) for the Panic. Collapse of TC&I's stock price was averted by an emergency takeover by Morgan's U.S. Steel Corporation. JP Morgan helped construct a pool of assets of several important New York banks to prop up shaky financial institutions. The key to the arrangement was the purchase by US Steel of the shares of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, currently held by a threatened New York bank. Production fell by 11%, imports by 26%, and unemployment rose from under 3% to 8%. The frequency and severity of the 1907 Panic, in addition to the outsized but critical role that Morgan played, created considerable pressure for reform of the financial system. Morgan insisted that he needed assurances that the purchase would not prompt antitrust action. Roosevelt agreed, and the Morgan plan proceeded. The panic might have deepened if not for the intervention of financier J. P. Morgan who pledged large sums of his own money, and convinced other New York bankers to do the same, to shore up the banking system. The following year, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., established and chaired a commission to investigate the crisis and propose future solutions, leading to the creation of the Federal Reserve System. It is unclear if the Morgan plan subsided the Panic or not. William Howard Taft Retirement Roosevelt loved being president, but did not run again due to long-standing tradition of 2 term presidencies. Taft recognized his policies would differ from Roosevelt. Unlike Roosevelt, Taft did not believe in the stretching of Presidential powers. The Panic of 1907 and his reform efforts alienated conservatives in the Republican Party that he may have had trouble winning the nomination. Taft's first problem arose in the opening months of the new administration, when he called Congress into special session to lower protective tariffs. Roosevelt "picked" William Howard Taft to "succeed" him. He encountered much resistance from the Old Guard and alienated many liberal Republicans (who later formed the Progressive Party), by defending the PayneAldrich Act which unexpectedly continued high tariff rates. A trade agreement with Canada, which Taft pushed through Congress, would have pleased eastern advocates of a low tariff, but the Canadians rejected it. Conservatives believed he would abandon Roosevelt's aggressive use of presidential powers, but in the end, Taft broke up more trusts than Roosevelt. Progressives were pleased with Taft's election. "Roosevelt has cut enough hay," they said; "Taft is the man to put it into the barn." Conservatives were delighted to be rid of Roosevelt--the "mad messiah." Taft further antagonized Progressives by upholding his Secretary of the Interior (Richard Ballinger), accused of failing to carry out Roosevelt's conservation policies. 4

5 Spreading Insurgency In the angry Progressive onslaught against him, little attention was paid to the fact that his administration initiated 80 antitrust suits and that Congress submitted to the states amendments for a Federal income tax and the direct election of Senators. A postal savings system was established, and the Interstate Commerce Commission was strengthened. The congressional elections of 1910 provided further evidence of how far the progressive revolt had spread. In primary elections, conservative Republicans suffered defeat, while almost all progressive incumbents were re-elected. In the general election, the Democrats won control of the House for the first time in 16 years and gained strength in the Senate. Roosevelt still denied any presidential ambitions and claimed his real purpose was to pressure Taft to return to progressive policies. Two events changed his mind. October 27, 1911 Taft announced his administration's suit against US Steel, that the acquisition of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company was illegal. The other incident was Senator Robert La Follette (WI) dropped out of the presidential race. Roosevelt v. Taft The battle for the nomination at the Chicago convention revolved around 254 delegates The RNC, controlled by the Old Guard, awarded all of 19 of them to Taft. Roosevelt took his supporters out of the convention as Taft was nominated as the Republican nominee Roosevelt summoned his supporters back to Chicago in August for another convention, this one to launch the new Progressive Party (Bull-Moose Party) and to nominate himself as its presidential candidate. The Republicans lost the election of 1912 because they were divided between Roosevelt and Taft. Taft, free of the Presidency, served as Professor of Law at Yale until President Harding made him Chief Justice of the United States, a position he held until just before his death in To Taft, the appointment was his greatest honor; he wrote: "I don't remember that I ever was President." Wilson's "New Freedom" As a presidential candidate in 1912, Wilson presented a progressive program called "New Freedom". Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" advocated accepting economic concentration and using government to regulate and control it. Wilson believed that "bigness" was unjust and was bent on destroying it. Lowering the Tariff Wilson exerted firm control over his cabinet and delegated real authority to only those whose loyalty was beyond question. Wilson's first triumph as president was the fulfillment of an old progressive goal: a substantial lowering of the protective tariff. The Underwood-Simmons Tariff provided cuts big enough to break the power of the trusts. To make up for the loss of revenue, Congress approved a graduated income tax that would ultimately become the 16th amendment. Federal Reserve Act Wilson also reformed the American banking system via the creation of the Federal Reserve. The Act created 12 regional banks, each to be owned and controlled by the individual banks of its district. The regional Federal Reserve banks would hold a percentage of the assets of their member banks in reserve; they would use those reserves to support loans to private banks at an interest rate that the Federal Reserve system would set. The regional banks issued Federal Reserve notes. Most important, they could shift funds quickly to troubled areas - to meet increased demands for credit or to protect troubled bans. Supervising and regulating the entire system was a national Federal Reserve Board, whose members were appointed by the President. Dealing with Monopolies Wilson proposed 2 measures to deal with the problem of monopoly, which took shape as the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Anti-Trust Act. The FTC created a regulatory agency that would help businesses determine in advance whether their actions would be acceptable to the government. The agency would also have the authority to launch prosecutions against "unfair trade practices" and it would have wide power to investigate corporate behavior. The Clayton Antitrust Bill proposed stronger measures to break up trusts. Wilson did little to protect it from conservative assaults, which greatly weakened it. Retreat from the "New Freedom" By the Fall of 1914, Wilson believed the New Freedom program was complete and that calls for reform would subside. He refused to support women's suffrage. He condoned segregation of the agencies of the federal government. He denounced reform legislation as unconstitutional or unnecessary. The congressional elections of 1914 shattered Wilson's complacency. Progressive supporters in the 1912 election retreated to the Republican Party. Wilson returned to being a Progressive. He appointed Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court, making him not only the first Jew but the most progressive justice. 1916, Wilson supported the Keating-Owen Act which prohibited the shipment of goods produced by underage children across state lines, thus giving an expanded importance to the constitutional clause assigning Congress the power of regulating interstate commerce. The Supreme Court struck down the Keating-Owen Act in Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918). It was not until the Supreme Court reversed its ruling in US v. Darnby Lumber Co. in 1941 that child labor was banned in the US. 5

6 Temperance Crusade Many Progressives considered the elimination of alcohol from American life a necessary step in restoring order to society. Scarce wages vanished as workers spent hours in saloons. Drunkenness spawned violence and poverty in families. Working class wives and mothers hoped temperance to reform male behavior and thus improve women's lives. Employers too regarded alcohol as an impediment to industrial efficiency. Workers missed time on the job because of drunkenness or worked while intoxicated. Critics of economic privilege denounced the liquor industry as one of the nation's most sinister trusts. WCTU & 18th Amendment WCTU & 18th Amendment Temperance had been a major reform movement before the Civil War mobilizing large numbers of people in a crusade with strong evangelical overtones. In 1873, the movement developed new strength. Temperance advocates formed the Women's Christian Temperance Union, led after 1879 by Frances Willard. In 1893, the Anti-Saloon League joined the temperance movement and, along with the WCTU began to press for the legal abolition of saloons. Gradually, that demand grew to include the complete prohibition of the sale and manufacture of alcoholic beverages. Suffrage Demanded Pressure for prohibition grew steadily through the first decades of the new century. By 1916, 19 states passed prohibition laws. During Reconstruction, while the debate over African - American suffrage ensued, some women believed it was their chance to push lawmakers for universal suffrage. America's entry into WWI, and the moral fervor it unleashed, provided the last push to the advocates of prohibition. Among those women were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. So enraged the 15th Amendment did not include women, Stanton and Anthony allied with racist Southerners arguing that (white) women's votes would counter the vote of African Americans. In 1917, with the support of rural fundamentalists who opposed alcohol on moral and religious grounds, progressive advocates of prohibition steered through Congress a constitutional amendment. 2 years later, after ratification by every state except CT and RI (large populations of Catholics opposed to prohibition) the 18th Amendment became law to take effect in January Women's Suffrage The largest single reform movement in American history was suffrage. Throughout the late 19th century, suffrage advocates presented their views in terms of "natural rights" arguing that women deserved the same rights as men - including, first and foremost, the right to vote. Promoting this view, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony challenged the traditional role of women to remain in the private sphere. Suffrage, though, was seen as a radical demand by critics. In 1869, they formed the National Woman Suffrage Association and began to fight for a Constitutional Amendment for women's suffrage. Those opposed to Stanton and Anthony - Lucy Stone and Julia Howe argued that it was unfair to endanger black enfranchisement by tying it to the markedly less popular campaign for female suffrage. They formed the American Woman Suffrage Association and fought for suffrage on a state-by-state basis. In 1890, the two groups merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Elizabeth Cady Stanton became its first president. NAWSA Early in the 20th century, the suffrage movement overcame obstacles and won some victories. Suffragists were becoming better organized and more politically sophisticated. Under the leadership of Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, membership in the National American Woman Suffrage Association grew to 2 million in 1917 because they began to justify suffrage in "safer," less threatening ways. They argued suffrage would not challenge the "separate sphere" in which women resided. A powerful anti-suffrage movement emerged, dominated by men but with the active support of many women. Anti-suffragists railed against the threat suffrage posed to the "natural order"- associating suffrage with divorce, promiscuity, and neglect of children. Catt Shaw 6

7 Women Divided NAWSA The new tactic claimed that because women occupied a distinct sphere suffrage would make an important contribution to politics as having the unique experience of wife, mother, and homemaker. Not all women believed in the goals of NAWSA. Some women who belonged to NAWSA left the organization to form other suffrage groups. Alice Paul worked with radical British Suffragettes in London to secure the vote. She then returned to the US and joined NAWSA. After multiple conflicts with Shaw and Catt, she and Lucy Burns left NAWSA in 1916 and formed the militant National Woman's Party. Many suffragists argued that enfranchising women would help the temperance movement, by giving its largest groups of supporters a political voice. Some suffrage advocates claimed that once women had the vote, war would become a thing of the past, since women, by nature, would curb the tempers of men. Against the wishes of NAWSA, Paul and Burns openly attacked Wilson for denying women suffrage. Outraged, NAWSA openly supported Wilson. Lucy Burns Alice Paul 19th Amendment Triumphs of the suffrage movement began in 1910, when WA extended suffrage to women. CA followed in By 1939, 39 states extended suffrage. In 1920, finally, suffragists won ratification of the 19th amendment. To some feminists, however, the victory seemed less than complete. Alice Paul never accepted the relatively conservative (private sphere) justification for suffrage. She argued the 19th amendment alone was not sufficient enough to protect women's rights. Women needed more: a constitutional amendment that would provide clear, legal protection for their rights and would prohibit all discrimination on the basis of sex. The Equal Rights Amendment Paul's argument found limited favor even among many of the most important leaders of the recently triumphant suffrage crusade. The Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified. 7