Lecture 6 - The Progressive Dream

Setting the Scene (late $19^{th}$ – early $20^{th}$ c.)
- Reconstruction → Gilded Age economy → Labor push-back → Populists → Imperialism → Progressives (today’s “Chapter 6”).
- Key hinge-years: $1905$ – $1907$ when many former Populists abandon a third-party strategy and instead permeate both major parties.
Political Violence Context
- U.S. has a recurrent (if tragic) tradition: Lincoln (1865), McKinley (1901), Kennedy (1963), failed attempts on Ford (1975), Reagan (1981), Trump (2023).
- McKinley’s 1901 assassination vaults Theodore Roosevelt (TR) into office and ushers in “Presidential Progressivism.”

Common Denominator = Policies that maximize Efficiency, Order & Fairness (E-O-F).
- If a project advances ≥2 of the 3, it is “progressive”; all three = model reform.
Twin Origins
1. Populist Economic Grievances (unfair terms for the $90\%$ )
2. Urban / Industrial Crises (slums, food safety, child labor, corporate corruption)
Not a Party, but a Coalition: Progressive Republicans (e.g.
TR) + Progressive Democrats (e.g.
Wilson) + Socialist sympathizers (e.g.
Eugene v. Debs) ± varied priorities.

Lithuanian immigrant family in Chicago slaughterhouses.
Graphic exposé: fingers, sawdust, rat poison → sausage.
Sinclair’s intent: highlight worker exploitation → socialism.
Public takeaway: “What’s in my food?!”
Direct Policy Result: Pure Food & Drug Act (1906) and Meat Inspection provisions; quintessential example of a Republican (TR) embracing a Democratic Socialist’s grievance, but channeling it toward federal regulation rather than socialist revolution.

Bad vs. Good Trusts
- Uses $\text{Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)}$ ; cartoon of TR shooting a “Bad-Trust Bear” & leashing a “Good-Trust Bear.”
Core Domestic Statutes
- Hepburn Act (1906) — sets maximum interstate railroad rates → fair shipping for farmers.
- Pure Food & Drug Act (1906) — ingredient labelling & narcotics limits.
Foreign / Imperial Vision — “Speak softly & carry a big stick”
- Great White Fleet (1907): gleaming battleships circle globe compelling Open Door trade deals.
- Caribbean dubbed “America’s Lake.”
- Panama Canal (1903 independence → 1914 opening):
- U.S. backs Panamanian secession from Colombia.
- Leases $\approx 25\;\text{mi}$ wide Canal Zone; promises eventual return (imperialism “by lease,” not outright conquest).
- Gold-standard E-O-F project: safer, faster trans-isthmus shipping = $\Huge \frac{\text{Atlantic} + \text{Pacific}}{\text{2-week sail around S. America}}$ .
Conservation Legacy
- Birth of National Parks/Forests/Monuments; sets aside millions of acres for posterity.

Only person to head both Executive (President) & Judicial (Chief Justice) branches.
Populist Amendments
- $16^{th}$ (Apr 1913): Federal graduated income tax.
- $17^{th}$ (Apr 1913): Direct election of Senators (anti-corruption).
Regulatory Bureaus
- Bureau of Mines (1910) — safety regs.
- Children’s Bureau (1912) — data & policy on child welfare.
Trust-Busting Philosophy: “No trust is good.”
- Standard Oil dismantled (1911).
- Attempt on U.S. Steel (less successful).
Pinchot–Ballinger Affair
- Taft OK’s sale of conserved lands; Forest Chief Gifford Pinchot (TR ally) protests → fired.
- Fallout splits GOP; TR forms Bull Moose Progressive Party.

$41\%$ Wilson (D) | $26.5\%$ Roosevelt (P) | $24\%$ Taft (R) | $6.5\%$ Debs (S).

First Southern president since Civil War; believer in Lost Cause; re-segregates federal offices & Washington DC ➔ major civil-rights setback.
Pro-Labor, Anti-Trust Legislation
- Clayton Antitrust Act (1914)
- Declares labor not a commodity.
- Legalizes strikes, pickets, boycotts; exempts baseball from antitrust (player contracts hinge on performance).
- Keating–Owen Child Labor Act (1916) — bans interstate sale of goods made by <$14$-yr-olds.
- Adamson Act (1916) — nationwide $8$ -hour workday for railroads (largest industry), overtime pay formula $\text{OT} = 1.5\times\text{hourly}$ after $8$ hrs.

Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones) — widowed Irish immigrant turned fiery organizer; labeled “most dangerous woman in America.”
Flash-Point Disasters
1. Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (NYC – 1911): $\approx146$ immigrant women die; locked exits.
2. Italian Hall Disaster (Calumet, MI – Dec 24 1913): $73$ trampled after false “fire” cry during copper strike.
3. Ludlow Massacre (CO – 1914): CO National Guard machine-guns tent colony of striking miners.
Public outrage + investigations → momentum for Clayton Act & child-labor/ hours laws.
Radical Edge — IWW (“Wobblies”)
- Goal: global worker solidarity → overthrow capitalism → worldwide communism.
- Sets stage for Red Scare after Russian Revolution (1917) and WW I (next lecture).

Federal Responsibility shifts from exceptional crises (e.g.
Civil War slavery) to everyday economic life (food safety, work hours, rail rates).
Dual Nature of Progressivism
- Can promote social equity (labor rights, food safety, national parks).
- Can entrench exclusionary practices (Wilson’s segregation, selective imperialism).
Imperialism à la U.S.
- Prefers economic leverage & leases over direct colonial rule; still coerces sovereignty (Panama, Caribbean).
Legacy
- Institutional pillars (income tax, direct senatorial elections, FDA predecessors, antitrust framework, national parks) remain foundational.
- Labor standards (child-labor limits, $8$ -hour norm) ripple outward to other sectors.

Post-1916: U.S. enters World War I → Russian Revolution → domestic Red Scare; Progressive tools & labor flash-points shape reactions (next lecture).