HTST 462 Progressivism 2025 PDF

HTST 462 January 23, 2025 Today: Progressivism and the evolution of a new political economy. Next week’s assigned reading: Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, Intro. and Ch. 1, pp. 1-47. Recap: the political ecnomy of the Gilded and its critics Cla...

HTST 462 January 23, 2025 Today: Progressivism and the evolution of a new political economy. Next week’s assigned reading: Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, Intro. and Ch. 1, pp. 1-47. Recap: the political ecnomy of the Gilded and its critics Classical Liberalism (laissez-faire eeocnomics) Free markets and property rights How the government shaped it Promote and protect the above How the major political parties managed it Consensus on laissez faire, debated other issues What reformers wanted and how they tried to get it Third parties and voluntary associations fought from the outside Populists and the elections of 1892 and 1896, reform fails to break through. Progressivism, 1890s-1920s An impulse, not an organization Evolution from earlier reform movements with new emphasis on curbing individualism, promote regulation, and trust in science and expertise. “America today is in a somber, soul-questioning mood. We are in a period of clamor, of bewilderment, of an almost tremulous unrest. We are hastily revising all our social conceptions.... We are profoundly disenchanted with the fruits of a century of independence.... It is in this moment of misgiving, when men are beginning to doubt the all- efficiency of our old-time democracy, that a new democracy is born. It is a new spirit, critical, concrete, insurgent. A clear-eyed discontent is abroad in the land. There is a low-voiced, earnest questioning. There is a not unreverential breaking of the tablets of tradition.” Walter Weyl, The New Democracy: An Essay on Certain Political and Economic Tendencies in the United States (1912)1, 4–5. The liberal side of progressivism Immigrants and urban poverty: Jane Addams, Hull House, Chicago. Democratizers: Former populists: and referendum, secret ballot, direct election of US senators; city managers. Nebraska, South Dakota Socialism: In 1912, Socialist party held 1,000 elected offices, including 141 mayors, 72 state legislators. Public ownership of utilities. Victor Berger, German immigrant, won 5 terms in the U.S. House representing Milwaukee Wisconsin, 1911- 1929). Woman’s rights: Susan B. Anthony, prez National Women’s Suffrage Association. Margaret Sanger and reproductive freedom. Religion and morality: Frances Willard, Women’s Christian Temperance Union Muckraking journalists Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890); Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities (1904), Upton Sinclair, The Labor reformers: Florence Kelley, National Consumers League, child labor and women’s hours of work. (see Forging America, p. 782) Progressivism’s illiberal side Race: Chinese exclusion and black disfranchisement. Eugenics Disfranchisement Efficiency: Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911). “To point out,... the great loss which the whole country is suffering through inefficiency.... The remedy for this inefficiency lies in systematic management...The best management is a true science, resting upon clearly defined laws, rules, and principles, as a foundation. And... The fundamental principles of scientific management are applicable to all kinds of human activities.... Moral reform’s two sides Hahn, “What separated ‘progressive’ reformers from the socialists whose perspectives and ideas they often borrowed, however, was a resistance to empowering the very people whose lives they seemed devoted to improving” (789). Disfranchisement in the South Ther 16th amendment, 1870 Enduring black political power after 1876. The challenge of populism in the 1890s 1890-1910, Southern states found ways around 15 th Amendment to deny blacks the vote. Poll tax, literacy test, Grandfather clause. Supporter of poll tax: “[The poll tax] reduces the electorate and places the political control of the state in the hands not of a minority of the voters alone, but a minority of the whites... The poll tax gets rid of most of the negro votes, but it gets rid of a great many whites at the same time.” Mississippi supporter of disfranchisement: “Thousands of gallant sons of the South had no property in slaves or otherwise, and yet they offered their lives to protect their neighbors' property, and the same noble spirit is now ready for any concession or sacrifice that will secure and perpetuate white supremacy in Mississippi.” Simultaneous with formal segregation: 1896, Plessy appealed case to Supreme Court. Statistics- Registered to vote in Louisiana in 1897, (before disfranchisement)- whites 164,088; blacks-130,344, total 294,432 Registered to vote in Louisiana in 1900, (after disfranchisement) – whites 125,437, blacks 5,320, total 130,757 In 1896, blacks were a majority of the voters in 26 Louisiana parishes (counties), in 1900, they were the majority in none. Literacy test, Louisiana example: Texas poll tax receipts, 1926  Disfranchisement Voter turnout in the rest of the U.S. 1876-1896: 79% (pres.) 63% (off year) 1900-1916: 1892: introduction of secret 65% (pres.) ballot (a.k.a. Australian 48% (off year) ballot). Voter Registration, state by state after 1896, with residency requirements. At-large elections City managers The Election of 1900 At Issue: Empire and Economics Rematch of Republican Wm. McKinley Democrat William Jennings Bryan, on an anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly platform  Theodore Roosevelt (TR) and the first wave of reform Reform opportunities in an era of one-party domination. Civil Service Strengthened nonpartisan rules for civil service; increased funds for Civil Service Commission; no political speech or contributions; removed post offices in the northeast from patronage. Corporate regulation 1904, Northern Securities Case, TR’s attorney General used Sherman Anti-Trust Act to break up a railroad trust in the northwest. TR sued 44 corporations. Bureau of Corporations, oversight for trusts. Environmental Conservation 125 million public acres into forest reserves, doubled national parks, 16 national monuments, 51 wildlife refuges TR’s reform strategy: create new sources of government power and new types of conflict. Top: TR; TR and environmentalist John Muir at Yosemite; TR wrestling the railroad trusts Roosevelt’s brand of business regulation --- Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906) -- Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act, 1906. Food and Drug Administration given new mission: Test all foods and drugs The “Big Six” meat packers destined for human consumption, and competition inspect all animals prior to slaughter J. Ogden Armour, “Even if these Prescriptions and licensed physicians; large packers were acting in label warnings on drugs. harmony, they would not be able All carcasses were subject to a post- mortem inspection to control prices... for the Cleanliness standards for reason that there a sufficient slaughterhouses. number of other... corporations Government stamp on all meat shipped... who would increase the across state lines or overseas. volume of their business the minute abnormal profits appeared.” Thomas E. Wilson, spokesman for Big Six, "We are now and have always been in favor of the extension of the inspection, also to the adoption of the sanitary regulations which will assure the very best possible conditions." A new wave of labor activism: the success of business unionism 1897-1904, union membership rose from 447,000 to 2,730,00, mostly in AFL craft unions. In 1900 only one of every 14 American workers was in a union (@15%), but 80% of those union workers belonged to an AFL local. Victories: 1898, Interstate agreement in Midwest coalfields. Reached by new union, United Mine Workers of America (UMW). Membership rose from 14,000 in 1897 to 300,000 by 1917. 1898-1908, International Typographical Union secured 8 hour day. 1900, International Association of Machinists, 8 hour day. Railroad unions lobbied for protective legislation from Congress and won bargaining with employers.  Anthracite Coal Strike, Pennsylvania, 1902 147,000 miners led by UMW pres. John Price of coal more than doubled that winter. Mitchell. Demands: shorten workday from 12 hours to 10; 10% wage increase; fair Mine operators asked TR to use army to system of weighing coal. break strike. George Baer, spokesman for operators “The miners don’t suffer, why they can’t Instead, TR called business and labor to even speak English.” “God in his infinite Washington negotiate. Wage hike and wisdom” has placed “the rights and interests of the laboring man” in the shorter hours won, but UMW not hands of capitalists, “not the labor recognized as bargaining agent. agitators”. The mine operators held to the standard line that they wouldn’t TR, criticized “wooden headed obstinacy negotiate with unions. and stupidity” of mine operators.” Also said "I believe that industrial combination is an absolute necessity.” Significance: federal government as neutral third party, not arm of business.  Intersections The Women's Trade Union League WTUL- 1903 a combination of middle-class reformers like Jane Addams and working-class women who lobbied to get women included in AFL unions. Major successes -- ILGWU, International Ladies Garment Workers Union -- worked for the passage of minimum wage and hour laws in the garment industry, a predominantly female trade, especially in New York, its center. -- Won the Uprising of 20,000, strike by 20,000 female garment workers in NYC for recognition of the ILGWU as the bargaining agent, 1910. Alliances with women middle-class progressives on child labor, workplace safety and woman’s suffrage.  Clockwise: top right. A WFM march in Arizona, 1916; 1904 The radicals campaign poster; IWW poster; Debs speaking Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) established 1905 by American Federation of Labor critics who wanted to organize unskilled workers. William D. Haywood; Western Federation of Miners (WFM). Eugene V. Debs, Socialist Party & American Railway Union. 6% of the vote in 1912 presidential election Daniel De Leon Socialist Labor Party. Joe Hill, “What We Want”, 1913. We want all the workers in the world to organize Into a great big union grand And when we all united stand The world for workers we demand If the working class could only see and realize What mighty power labor has Then the exploiting master class It would soon fade away.  A new alliance between labor and the Democratic Party 1906, Gompers presents TR with Labor’s Bill of Grievances, rebuffed. 1908-1916, growing alliance between labor and Democrats. AFL helped Democrat Woodrow Wilson win the presidency in 1912, and brought about more pro-labor legislation. Election of 1912: Republicans divided, Progressives capture Democrats. Woodrow Wilson: reformer academic, foreign policy internationalist, southern white supremacist. Ran on “New Freedom”. “Freedom today is something more than being let alone. The program of a government of freedom must in these days be positive, not negative merely.” Influenced by Progressive jurist Louis P. Brandeis, democracy needed free market competition and ending big business domination of government.  Wilson’s labor laws 1913, Department of Labor established, first head (William Wilson) belonged to the UMW. 1913-1915, Committee on Industrial Relations 1914, Clayton Antitrust Act, rhetoric good, impact minimal. 1915, LaFollette Seaman’s Act 1916, Keating-Owen Act, outlawed child labor in manfacturing. 1916, Adamson Act, 8-hour day for railroad workers. 1916, Warehouse Act, extended credit to farmers. Wilson’s and business regulation Federal Trade Commission, 1914, investigate and outlaw “unfair” business practices. The Federal Reserve Act, 1913. 12 regional banks that received US governments deposits. Managed by central board appointed by president. (above fed reserve bank in Washington) Mission: currency, interest, bank solvency. Reaction to Panic of 1907, J.P. Morgan (left) and Co. only bank with enough capital to rescue collapsing credit market Despite appearances, business welcomed these initiatives. Conclusion: a new administrative state End of Jeffersonian approach to government New sources of power new sources of conflict Fulfillment of some late 19th century labor and farmer reforms, Fulfillment of some goals of managerial capitalism. Towards a new liberal consensus. Progressivism’s illiberal face