Progressivism
American Progressivism is defined as a broadly based reform movement that reached the height of influence in the early twentieth century and that was largely middle class and reformist in nature. Progressivism arose as a response to the vast changes brought about by modernization, such as the growth of large corporations and railroads, and fears of corruption in American politics. Emerging at the end of the nineteenth century, Progressive reformers established much of the tone of American politics throughout the first half of the century.
Politically, Progressives of this era belonged to a wide range of parties and had leaders from the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as from the Bull-Moose Republicans, Lincoln-Roosevelt League Republicans (in California), and the United States Progressive Party. Rather than affiliating with a dominant party, American Progressives shared a common goal of wielding federal power to pursue a sweeping range of social, environmental, political, and economic reforms. The pursuit of trust-busting (breaking up very large monopolies) was chief among these aims, as was garnering support for labor unions, public health programs, decreased corruption in politics, and environmental conservation.
Core Principles
Many of the core principles of the Progressive movement focused on the need for efficiency and the elimination of corruption and waste. Purification to eliminate waste and corruption was a powerful element, as was the Progressives' support of worker compensation, improved child labor laws, minimum wage legislation, limited work hours, graduated income tax, and women's suffrage. Historian William Leuchtenburg describes the Progressives thusly:
The Progressives believed in the Hamiltonian concept of positive government, of a national government directing the destinies of the nation at home and abroad. They had little but contempt for the strict construction of the Constitution by conservative judges, who would restrict the power of the national government to act against social evils and to extend the blessings of democracy to less favored lands. The real enemy was particularism, state rights, limited government.
For Progressive reformers, the Constitution represented a loose set of guidelines for political governance, rather than acting as a strict authority on the political development of the United States or on the scope of federal power. More, not less, regulation was necessary to ensure that society operated efficiently, and therefore, most Progressives believed that the federal government was the only suitable power to combat trusts, monopolies, poverty, deficits in education, and economic problems.
"The Pump"
In this 1913 political cartoon, Woodrow Wilson uses tariff, currency, and antitrust laws (represented by buckets) to prime the pump (representing prosperity) and get the economy working.
City Management
Although they argued for more federal intervention in local affairs (especially in urban centers), most Progressives typically concentrated on reforming municipal and state governments to create better ways to provide services as cities grew rapidly. The result was "municipal administration," which effectively managed legal processes, market transactions, bureaucratic administration, and urban reform.
One example of Progressive reform was the rise of the city-manager system, in which salaried, professional engineers ran the day-to-day affairs of city governments under guidelines established by elected city councils. Additionally, many cities created municipal "reference bureaus" that conducted surveys of government departments looking for waste and inefficiency. After in-depth surveys, local and even state governments were reorganized to reduce the number of officials and to eliminate overlapping areas of authority among departments. City governments also were reorganized to reduce the power of local ward bosses and to increase the powers of the city council.
Education
Early Progressive thinkers, such as John Dewey and Lester Ward, placed a universal and comprehensive system of education at the top of the Progressive agenda, reasoning that if a democracy were to be successful, the general public needed to be educated. Progressives advocated to expand and improve public and private education at all levels. Modernization of society, they believed, necessitated the compulsory education of all children, even if parents objected. Progressives turned to educational researchers to evaluate the reform agenda by measuring numerous aspects of education, which later led to standardized testing. Child-labor laws were designed to prohibit children from entering the workforce before a certain age, further compelling children into the public schools. Many educational reforms and innovations generated during this period continued to influence debates and initiatives in American education for the remainder of the twentieth century.
Economic Theory
Many Progressives hoped that by regulating large corporations, they could liberate human energies from the restrictions imposed by industrial capitalism. Yet the Progressive movement was divided over which of the following solutions should be used to regulate corporations:
Pro-labor Progressives such as Samuel Gompers argued that industrial monopolies were unnatural economic institutions that suppressed the competition necessary for progress and improvement. U.S. antitrust law is the body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior (monopolies) and unfair business practices. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft supported trust-busting. During their presidencies, the otherwise conservative Taft brought down 90 trusts in four years while Roosevelt took down 44 in 7 1/2 years in office.
Progressives such as Benjamin Parke DeWitt argued that in a modern economy, large corporations and even monopolies were both inevitable and desirable. With their massive resources and economies of scale, large corporations offered the United States advantages that smaller companies could not offer. Yet, these large corporations might abuse their great power. The federal government should allow these companies to exist but regulate them for the public interest. President Theodore Roosevelt generally supported this idea and was later to incorporate it as part of his political philosophy of "New Nationalism."