Progressive Era PresidentsAmerican History 10

Riddlebarger

Progressive Era Presidents:Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09)

William Howard Taft (1909-13)

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1920)

Roosevelt’s View of the Presidency

The Square Deal

● This term will become the slogan of his 1904 re-election campaign & the framework for his entire presidency.

○ He promised to “see that each [person] is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.”

● Reveals his belief that the needs of workers, business and consumers should all be balanced.

● Square Deal: limit power of trusts, promote public health & safety and improve working conditions.

Regulating Big Business

Roosevelt focus great attention on regulating large corporations.

“We are...determined that they [corporations] shall be so handled as to subserve [serve] the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.”

Trust-busting

In 1901, 3 major railroads merge to eliminate competition & will dominate shipping from Chicago to the Northwest

● Northern Securities Company● TR sues them for violating Sherman Antitrust Act● Supreme Court will agree & dissolves the company in 1904

○ Landmark ruling

● TR will go on trust-busting campaign; dozens more lawsuits filed○ Not about size of company; Was it good or bad for the American public?

■ Inferior products; competed unfairly; bribed public officials

Regulating the railroads

A way to see that businesses competed fairly was through regulation

● Elkins Act (1903)- prohibits railroads from accepting rebates○ Rebates favored big business over small farmers and businesses○ Now, all customers pay the same rate

● Hepburn Act (1906)- gave ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission) the power to set maximum railroad rates

○ Can also regulate other companies that do interstate commerce.

The Jungle

● Upton Sinclair book in 1906

● Meatpacking industry revelations in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle

● Leads to heavy criticism of meat industry & calls for reform

Investigation● Roosevelt has Secretary

of Agriculture James Wilson investigate

● His final report leads to reform

● Meat Inspection Act○ Federal inspection of meat

shipped across state lines

● Pure Food & Drug Act○ Forbade sale &

manufacture of drugs containing harmful ingredients

○ Accurate ingredient labels

“ We saw meat shoveled from filthy wooden floors, piled on tables rarely washed, pushed from room to room in rotten box carts. In all of which processes it [the meat] was in the way of gathering dirt, splinters, floor filth, and the expectoration [saliva] of tuberculous and other diseased workers.”

Environmental Conservation

Roosevelt has a different view:

“We of an older generation can get along with what we have...but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted.”

Conservation

Before Roosevelt, the federal government had left natural resources unregulated.

● Business needs take priority over the environment● Roosevelt saw resources as limited and the need for control● Roosevelt saw some lands as needing preservation and others put to

productive economic use

Roosevelt Environmental Actions:

Newlands Reclamation Act (1902): government created irrigation projects to make dry lands productive

United States Forest Service- established in 1905. Roosevelt adds 150 million acres to national forests.

Antiquities Act (1906): creation of 18 national monuments in Roosevelt’s term in office.

*some see conservation as TR’s greatest legacy

Progressivism under Taft● William Howard Taft will be Roosevelt’s choice to succeed him as President. ● Taft will defeat William Jennings Bryan by a wide margin in the election● Soon, Taft will fall into disfavor with Roosevelt.

Taft & ProgressivismTaft worked to secure Roosevelt’s reforms rather than to build upon them.

He does create the Department of Labor & increase national forest reserves

● Dept. of Labor enforces labor laws

Credited with passage of the 16th Amendment:

● Income tax● Seen by Progressives as a way to more fairly pay for government

programs

1912 election

● Many Republican still support Taft● Roosevelt challenges him but loses nomination.● Progressive Republicans break away and form Progressive (Bull Moose)

Party with Roosevelt as candidate.● Democrats choose Woodrow Wilson● Eugene Debs is Socialist candidate

1912 election results

Federal Reserve ActPassed in 1913, created a central fund from which banks could borrow to prevent collapses during a panic.

● there was a feeling that the unregulated banking system led to economic recessions

● Bank failures had been common

● Regulate the nation’s money supply

○ Sets interest rates

Federal Reserve Board

12 Federal Reserve Banks(serve other banks)

Private Banks(Borrow from Fed as

needed)

Stronger antitrust lawsUnfair business practices persisted after passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890.

Wilson urges passage of Clayton Antitrust Act

● Prohibited companies from buying stock of competing companies (in order to form monopolies)

● Also supports workers by making strikes, boycotts and peaceful picketing legal for the 1st time

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is established to enforce antitrust laws & get tough on companies using deceptive advertising.

Conserservation

Wilson establishes the National Park Service

● an agency of the United States federal government that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties