PROGRESSIVE ERA.   Term Paper ID:25516 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Social, economic & political aspects, origins, ideology, leadership, platform & effects of late 19th/early 20th Cent. reform movement.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Social, economic & political aspects, origins, ideology, leadership, platform & effects of late 19th/early 20th Cent. reform movement. Paper Introduction: This research will examine the period of American history known as the Progressive Era. The research will set forth the social and political context in which Progressivism emerged and discuss what individuals and groups were identified with the phenomenon and why, what the trend achieved, and its significance as an outgrowth of previous movements in American culture and as a precursor of events and actions that followed. Many of the features of American life that gave rise to the age of industry and enterprise known as the Gilded Age also fostered the development of a period in which society, politics, and culture converged so as to give to the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the years before the onset of World War I the term Progressive Era. How socially and politically progressive ideas of transformation and reform could have arisen in th Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Many of the features of American life that gave rise to the age ofindustry and enterprise known as the Gilded Age also fostered thedevelopment of a period in which society, politics, and culture convergedso as to give to the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the yearsbefore the onset of World War I the term Progressive Era. through efforts to control legislation and improperly influence the suffrages of the people.[x]In 1899, George Rice, owner of a small oil refinery, described to theUnited States Industrial Commission how Rockefeller's Standard Oil, in"criminal collusion and conspiracy with the railroads . . Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale water--and cart load after cart load of it would be taken up end dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent out to the public's breakfast.[xvii] The most radical component of Progressivism could be found in effortsto organize industrial labor unions. Pragmatism that implied Progressivism was in the background of exposésand novels of crusading journalists such as Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair,and Frank Norris, which sought to portray truth in service of large-scalesocial and market reform. Pragmatism was the philosophical foundation that progressivesappropriated to the task of curing society's ills, and it appears to havebeen more important in the long run than Social Darwinism because it hassurvived more or less intact as a method and structure of thought.According to its principal exponent, the American philosopher WilliamJames, the only way to test an idea was to apply it to experience (and not,for example, to the dogma of either religion or Social Darwinism).Pragmatism is "a method of carrying on abstract discussion [so that] . would not havebeen ideologically naked without the Spencerian formulation."[v] To be sure, Social Darwinism can be seen as a reworking of Puritanism,which in its earliest flowering in New England had as a major tenet ofbelief that God smiles materially on the spiritually just but not on theimmoral or unworthy.[vi] In the last years of the nineteenth century,however, the landscape and general experience of America went far beyondthe confines of early New England society, and there is compelling evidencethat those who were best positioned materially expressed a psychologicaltemperament that was consistent with Darwinism and that fed into what wasto become Progressivism's response to it. [viii]Walter Lord, The Good Years (New York: Bantam, 1965), 64. [xii]Ibid., 7 4. . From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes--tramps and millionaires.[xxii]In the event, Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected, and the Panic of 1893,which tempered the power of the railroads, further sharpened classdivisions. Chicago: W.B. The Uprooted. The research will set forth the social and politicalcontext in which Progressivism emerged and discuss what individuals andgroups were identified with the phenomenon and why, what the trendachieved, and its significance as an outgrowth of previous movements inAmerican culture and as a precursor of events and actions that followed. [xxv]Congressional Record, 54th Congress, 1st Session (March 16,1896), 28l7-2 passim. . . [iii]Bert J. [xxiv]William Jennings Bryan, "Speech at Democratic Convention of1896," The First Battle (Chicago. Congress, House. If an idea wasnot practical, it should be laid aside. S. The fervor of the platform suggests that populism was aliberal reform force moving to correct all ills in society. [xi]House Document No. . . Its sense of possibility, informed by pragmatism'sbreak out of the systemic, determinist social analysis implied by SocialDarwinism, helps explain why it is associated with a certain confidencethat, however difficult the problems of the age were, they could--or anywayshould--be solved. The Octopus. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and . 724 (1894). (16 March 1896), 28l7-2 .Congressional Record, 63rd Congress, 3rd Session. . Ghent, Our Benevolent Feudalism (New York: Macmillan,19 3), 29. . . . in the concrete difference tosomeone which its being true will make."[xiv] If an idea or principle wasable to solve a practical problem, it was true and good. The Jungle. Despite the factthat, as Loewenberg says, Darwin "crash[ed] the conceptual barricadessurrounding species [and] . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944.Lord, Walter. Another strand, notunconnected to it, was emergent political radicalism. Boston: Little, Brown, 1951.Harvey, William J. But a closer reading of Populist Platform suggests that the U.S.political system may not have benefited from its success. 476, 1899.Vanderbilt, Wm. "I don't take any stock in this silly nonsense about working foranybody's good but his own." As for employee relations, Vanderbiltexplained that "there is always a lot of shiftless fellows who spend theirmoney in drink and riotous living, who are ready to complain of anything."And of the intrusion of government into industry, he said that especiallythe anti-monopoly movement was inspired by a set of fools and black-mailers. Washington, D.C.: U.S. 56th Congress, 1st sess., House Document No. [xxii]Edward Stanwood, "Populist Party Platform, July 4, 1892," AHistory of Presidential Elections (Boston: Little, 1892), 474. touches even the ermine of the beach. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working-out of a law of nature and a law of God.[ii] Darwinism, indeed, appears to have fostered the intellectual climateof the age in both the U.S. And on suchissues as child labor, Wilson proved not to be quite the progressivecrusader Americans had hoped he would be. When I want to buy up any politician I always find the anti-monopolists the most purchasable- -they don't come so high.[vii] Lord says that the robber barons "were not naturally callous" but had"lost touch" with ordinary people's reality.[viii] He also points out thatPresident Theodore Roosevelt, who famously railed against "malefactors ofgreat wealth," was opposed in principle neither to great wealth nor tobigness in business. But Progressivism remains anidentifiable social and political phenomenon, despite evidence ofsuppression of is ideas. were attributed for three or four years mainly to his extraordinary capacity for bargaining and borrowing. . Where was his advantage? . The views of John D. . H. Powderly, The Path I Trod (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 194 ), 4 1. The Descent of Man added that sameplausibility to the a theory of biological evolution of man. Debs, founder of theAmerican Socialist Party, wanted workers "to jointly own these mammothmachines ... . The Path I Trod. v. Debs, et al., 64 Fed. 724. "Darwinism Comes to American, 1865-19 ." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 28 (December 1941): 339-68.Norris, Frank. Boston: Little, 1892.Tarbell, Ida. Standard Oil Trusts . Its party platformclaimed that industrial wealth controlled the government, implicating thevery political system in its wide-ranging diagnosis of market-based socialcleavage. I have endeavored to direct the eyes of our members to the principal parts of the preamble of our Order--government ownership of land, of railroads, or regulation of railroads, telegraphs, and money. . Asked what basisis used to calculate rates, the agent "emphasized each word of his replywith a tap of one forefinger on the counter before him: 'All--the--traffic--will--bear.'"[xv] Ida Tarbell's history of Rockefeller's Standard OilCompany describes the technique of using railroad rebates to crushcompetitors. The extraordinary material success of a few proved an attractiveobjective for some but a conceptual example for the many. . Chicago Daily News 9 October 1882: 1.Wyllie, Irvin G. Conley, 1896), 2 6. BibliographyBecker, Carl L. . conservation--but it saw the dismissal of Garfield, Pinchot, and other officials seeking an effective program. It wanted social welfare--but just this past year the courts threw out New York's minimum wage law. [x]James D. [xx]Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor (New York: E.P.Dutton, 1925), 26-27. . . . By the time of the Great War inEurope, Progressivist sensibility, which as a concept was on the whole moreinclusionist than exclusionist, was in decline, and by the time Americaentered the war it had an antique quality. with which the English-speaking people have never hitherto assimilated, and who are most alien to the great body of the people of the United States.[xxv]This is a distinction without a difference from the reference to "importedpauperized labor" in the Populist platform. [ix]Ibid., 74. . [xvii]Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (New York: Harper, 19 6), 136. Eugene V. Our Benevolent Feudalism. [xvi]Ida Tarbell, History of Standard Oil Company (New York: McClure,Phillips, 19 4), 44-46. . TR mounted an abortive run for the presidency on theProgressive Party platform, which stood for "government as a positiveforce, looking after the people's needs through social welfarelaws."[xxviii] Democrats rejected William Jennings Bryan, who in 1896 hadstood as a Populist Party candidate, for college president Woodrow Wilson,who was seen as the Democratic version of a progressive, in the context ofwhat was viewed as Taft's systematic dismantling of American socialprogress. But where the issue isProgressivism, that particular debate belongs to a different exercise. New York: E.P. President Grover Cleveland had as early as 1888 expressedanger at attempts of the monopolies to control the government. 1894.U.S. [xxvii]Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951), 288,29 -92. Morerelevant to the present research are the implications that flow from thefact of emergence as the norm, which suggested that progress was importantper se. [iv]Ibid., 342. [xxiii]William J. . Conley, 1896.Congressional Record, 54th Congress, 1st Session. TR, whohad favored such measures as natural-resources conservation againstindustrial-sector interests that wanted all public lands available fordevelopment, was disillusioned by his colorless Republican successor inoffice, Taft. There was but one place where it could be, and that was his transportation. The country wanted . Some began to ask whether there was not as much cooperation ascompetition in nature and in society. . 476, 56th Congress, 1st Session, United StatesIndustrial Commission Report, I, 1899, 687. [xxviii]Lord, 295. The robber barons can be viewed as a touchstone of tension betweenentrepreneurial and Progressivist ideas. W.B. But these things could not explain all. New York: Harper, 19 6.Stanwood, Edward. A third strand waspopulism, which pitted smaller farmers and smaller businesses against whatthose schooled in Marx's social theory would know as industrial capitalism.These three strands of thought overlapped and converged, but there arediscernible differences among them. S. [vi]Carl L. . . [xxi]U. . New York: Doubleday, 19 1.Perry, Ralph Barton. . New York: Macmillan, 19 3.Gompers, Samuel. . New York: Bantam, 1965.Loewenberg, Bert J. Indeed, Terence V. [v]Wyllie, 635. Coin'sPublishing Co., 1894), 2ff. Corruption . Debs: His Life, Writings, and Speeches. . Advocacy of the people over therobber barons and of unionization would suggest a reformist emphasis, andPopulist advocacy of free coinage of silver was considered a help to thecommon man on the farm or in the city who needed to repay debts or torestart a failed smaller business.[xxiii] The highest expression of themonetary evils of industrial America vis-à-vis labor unionization came fromWilliam Jennings Bryan, who in 1896 ran a populist presidential campaign asa Democrat: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown ofthorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."[xxiv] Populism's feverish view of the evils of the railroads and of the citypoints to nostalgia for rural simplicity rather than recognition of theinevitability of industrial progress or indeed reform of the urban squalorimplied by industrial capitalism. That being so, and given thevariety of states of evolved social experience, the shape of the practicalexperience of human society could be altered, perhaps toward a more evolvedstate but more fundamentally toward a state more closely approximatingtruth. New York: Columbia University Press, 194 .Richardson, James D., ed. . Seventy Years of Life and Labor. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1915.Bryan, William Jennings. urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection, imported pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. Undoubtedly,the social and psychological needs of plains farmers who had supplied theneeds of the city for generations and found that the city really ran farmproduction and controlled the quality of farm life could lead to attemptsto get someone in government to listen. If the details of the theorywere not followed by a great number of people, it was accepted by an groupof people influential enough to "furnish the main themes of American life"from 188 to 19 and beyond.[iv] Wyllie says that, aside from Carnegie,who in his Autobiography wholeheartedly endorsed Spencer's theory,relatively few--and fewer still who were systematically articulate about it--businessmen could really be called Social Darwinists. Combinations are condemned, not only when they take the form of trusts, but in whatever form found, if they be in restraint of trade . Chicago: Charles H. [vii]Interview, Wm. As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. in the absolutely vain endeavor to get equal and just freight rates with the Standard Oil Trust, so as to be able to run my refinery ant anything approaching a profit . . He must be getting better rates from the railroads than they were.[xvi]Upton Sinclair describes conditions in the meat-packing industry in hisbest-selling The Jungle: Under the system of rigid economy which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid to do once in a long time, and among these was the cleaning-out of the waste-barrels. . . "Social Darwinism and the Businessman." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 1 3 (October 1959): 629-35.----------------------- Notes [i]Irvin G. Vanderbilt, Chicago Daily News, 9 October 1882:1. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters . How socially andpolitically progressive ideas of transformation and reform could havearisen in the context of such phenomena as robber barons, a transportationsystem with national scope, a diversified but also specialized productionand distribution infrastructure critical to industrial processes, a sharednational sense that natural resources were unlimited, and the government'spractice of encouraging industrial and agricultural development andprofessionalization by way of laissez faire policies, land grants, andloans may seem paradoxical, unless it is also remembered that socialexperience has a conceptual as well as material component. . They believed they bought, on the whole, almost as cheaply as he, and they knew they made as good oil and with as great, or nearly as great economy. Beginnings of the American People. "Populist Party Platform, July 4, 1892." A History of Presidential Elections. "Whatdoes the public care for the railroads," Vanderbilt told the Chicago DailyNews. It wanted a tough antitrust policy--but the latest Supreme Court decision said trusts were only bad if "unreasonable."[xxix] The country got Wilson because of the Republican split. John Rockefeller might get his oil cheaper now and then, they said, but he could not do it often. . Vanderbilt, president of the New York Central Railroad, who wasasked whether the railroads were run for the benefit of the public. Becker, Beginnings of the American People (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 1915), 113-14. Harvey, Coin's Financial School (Chicago. (1915), 2481-82.Debs, Eugene V. which made function the criterion and emergence the norm,"[xiii]evolution discourse was no exception. He might have an unusual mechanical and practical genius in his partner. Spencer's view of society was just what Americans wanted to hear. The conceptual confrontation betweenso-called creationism and natural science was one aspect of this, and thatconfrontation specifically clashes with the class confrontations of the agein the aged persona of William Jennings Bryan. Itgave sanction to methods that businessmen had always used and that they didnot want the government to interfere with. . "Speech at Democratic Convention of 1896." The First Battle. Another difficulty of equatingProgressivism with populism is that the latter contained sharp strands ofracism, which could surface as anti-immigrant, anti-Negro, or antisemiticattitudes that were shared by their political opponents of the upper class.In that regard Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who was no populist and who in1896 proposed such a literacy test for the newer immigrants, by no meansconcealed a racist xenophobia: [T]he illiteracy test will bear most heavily upon the Italians, Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Greeks, and Asiatics, and very lightly, or not at all, upon English-speaking emigrants or Germans, Scandinavians, and French. Social Darwinism in American Thought. and in Britain, where in 1859 naturalistCharles Darwin published The Origin of Species and in 1871 The Descent ofMan. But all of this time I have been fighting for a raise in wages."[xix] Some union leaders, notably Samuel Gompers of the American Federationof Labor, were less focused on wholesale social transformation than onimproving workers' wages and working conditions and the guaranteed right ofcollective bargaining.[xx] But labor was viewed as a radical force, hencewith suspicion and alarm, not only by industry giants such as Vanderbiltbut also by government. In other words, the races most affected by the illiteracy test are those . . United States Industrial Commission Report. [xviii]Eugene V. Powderly, Grand MasterWorkman of the Knights of Labor, complained about having to fight for theminor issue of wages. Wyllie, "Social Darwinism and the Businessman,"Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 1 3 (October 1959):629. . As Loewenbergexplains, Darwinism posited two primary tenets, that all life "developedfrom preexisting life. Chicago: Coin's Publishing Co., 1894.Hofstadter, Richard. .the serious meaning of a concept lies . The American Beauty rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow around it. Given variation, those withdifferences favorable in a given set of circumstances survived, while thosewithout them perished.[iii] In 1882, Herbert Spencer's Synthetic Philosophyand Social Statics transferred the scientific theory to society, arguingthat applying principles of evolution to society would reveal the superiorpeople in it are the ones who had conquered the struggle for life andbenefit; their experience was evidence of survival of the fittest. Coin's Financial School. It is possible to trace the eclipse of Progressivism to thepresidential election of 1912, the year that the calls for reform (andcountercalls against it) that for nearly 25 years had come from severalsectors of American society reached mainstream national politics. wholly by andthrough unlawful freight discriminations,"[xi] drove him out of business.When he tried to shift his oil shipments from one railway line to another . The Thought and Character of William James. could temporarily cut only my customers' prices, and below cost, leaving the balance of the town, nine-tenths, uncut.[xii] It is a truism of human experience that a dominant climate of opinionis frequently a beginning of something opposite to it. History of Standard Oil Company. New York: McClure, Phillips, 19 4.U. Debs, et al., 64 Fed. This research will examine the period of American history known as theProgressive Era. One was associated with muckrakingjournalism and fiction and the discourse of American intellectual life thatfostered organized political projects of social reform. Butby that time the Progressive Era was over, indeed had been over sincebefore the beginning of the Great War. [xix]Terence V. [xxix]Ibid., 279. [xiii]Loewenberg 366-7. Dutton, 1925.Handlin, Oscar. v. . This was afterall the period of Andrew Carnegie's declaration of the Gospel of Wealth andhis well-documented embrace of Social Darwinism,[i] each of which providedpopular explanation of why and how the industrial giants nationalizedindustry and acquired vast wealth. . [xiv]Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James(New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1948), 28 , quoting James's Collected Essays,448. We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. . The liberal tide was never stronger, yet events of the past four years convinced many people that shadowy forces were at work, deliberately subverting the reforms. and to operate them as joint partners."[xviii] TheConstitution of the Knights of Labor, adopted in 1878, declared that wealthaccumulation should be limited. He cites the viewthat Darwinism "may have done no more than furnish new terms for old ideasin the years after Appomatox, and that businessmen . In The Octopus, Frank Norris describes a hopsfarmer's interview with a railroad agent when the railroad breaks ashipping contract and raises rates from two cents to five. Rockefeller, whobuilt the Standard Oil Company, were also very much in line with Darwinism.As he told his Sunday School class: The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest . The Good Years. Kerr, 19 8), 482. The strides the firm of Rockefeller . H. Debs, Debs: His Life, Writings, and Speeches(Chicago: Charles H. More than this, the Knights of Labor calledfor everything from shortening the work day to eight hours to governmentappropriation of land from railroads and redistribution of land to settlersto prohibitions on child labor. Progressive and reformist strands ofthought emerged out of interrogation of Darwinism on its own terms. Government Printing Office, 1917), 5359-6 . Any proposed restraint of trade, though it be in itself innocent, if it is to be accomplished by conspiracy, is unlawful.[xxi] Another approach to social reform came from the Populist Party, formedin the Presidential Election of 1892 in part because populist ideas werenot being discussed by either of the major parties. Richardson, Compilation of the Messages and Papers of thePresidents (Washington, D.C.: U.S. It is worth noting thatCleveland in 1896 and Wilson in 1915 vetoed literacy tests for immigrants.Wilson's veto message explained that such a test "excludes those to whomthe opportunities of elementary education have been denied."[xxvi] This didnot prevent later restrictions being placed on immigration classes, basedon criminality, political sympathies, or national origin.[xxvii] Indeed, in1917, Congress overrode another Wilson veto and enacted literacy tests. [xxvi]Congressional Record, 63rd Congress, 3rd Session (1915), 2481-82. . [xv]Frank Norris, The Octopus (New York: Doubleday, 19 1), 62-64. But TR, Lord says, "tended to see all questions asmoral issues." Thus a trust charging fair rates and giving good service wasto be allowed, while one that restrained trade and jacked up rates wasnot.[ix] As a practical matter, however, there was a significant body ofevidence that those not at the top of the food chain were not the realblackmailers. Kerr, 19 8.Ghent, William H. exposed mind, morals, and therefore, thewhole scope of social relations to change and, ultimately, to naturalism .. . Government Printing Office, 1917.Sinclair, Upton. [ii]William H. Loewenberg, "Darwinism Comes to America, 1865-19 ,"Mississippi Valley Historical Review 28 (December 1941): 349. Populism is really to be distinguished from rather than attached toProgressivism. Plants and animals, despite resemblances tothe parent stock, were inherently different. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1948.Powderly, Terence V. The Origin of Species developed ideas about natural science and theanimal kingdom that had been circulating for a number of years, butDarwin's giving formal plausibility to the theory of evolution joltedcenturies-old tenets of biology. "The public be damned," declaredWilliam H. Three strands of Progressivism emerged out of exposure of unpleasanttruths about industrial society. Indeed, in 1895, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act wasapplied, not against employers rather against labor unions during a Pullmanstrike. Then its chief competitors began to suspect something. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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