Federal Government Reforms

During the Progressive Era, the Federal Government passed an enormous amount of legislation designed to conserve the environment, tighten past economic regulations, preserve the health and safety of American citizens, and generally provide needed capitalist reforms.

Amendments

16th - Income Tax

17th – Direct Election of Senators

18th - Prohibition

19th – Women’s Suffrage

elect representatives to the U.S. Senate, instead of allowing party-controlled state legislatures to do

Progressive Presidents1 - Theodore Roosevelt:Republican (1901-1909)

(The New-York Historical Society)

Roosevelt the “trust-buster”He believed Wall Street financiers and powerful trust titans to be acting foolishly. While they were eating off fancy china on mahogany tables in marble dining rooms, the masses were roughing it. There seemed to be no limit to greed. If docking wages would increase profits, it was done. If higher railroad rates put more gold in their coffers, it was done. How much was enough, Roosevelt wondered?

“ONE SEES HIS FINISH UNLESS GOOD GOVERNMENT RETAKES THE SHIP”

Roosevelt said confidently that no man, no matter how powerful, was above the law

ROOSEVELT AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Before Roosevelt’s presidency, the federal government paid very little attention to the nation’s natural resources

Roosevelt made conservation a primary concern of his administration Roosevelt, left, was an avid

outdoorsman – here he is with author John Muir at Yosemite Park

CONSERVATION:National Parks and Forests

William Howard Taft

President 1909-13*served in Roosevelt’s cabinet and were good

friends

Taft’s Progressive Accomplishments - continued many of the programs that Roosevelt had initiated Congress passed laws

mandating safer working conditions in mines and an 8-hour workday for the laborers in any company that did business with the federal government.

Con’t Trust-busting Filed nearly a hundred

lawsuits against trusts Forest and oil reserves

Set aside more land Sixteenth Amendment

providing for a federal income tax proportional to the amount a person earned

BUT: Caused split in Republican Party Payne-Aldrich Tariff

(1909)▪ This tariff raised the prices of

consumer goods

▪ Pinchot-Ballinger

Controversy ▪ sale of a vast tract of land in

Alaska to the timber industry

(Taft has) “…completely twisted around the policies I advocated and acted upon.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

Democrat

Embarked on a program to continue Progressive reform called the "New Freedom

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson – Wait on him

Significance of Progressivism

Was an effort to cure many of the ills of American society that had developed during the great spurt of industrial growth around the 1890s… The frontier had been tamed Great cities and businesses developed Overseas empire established (later)

BUT not all citizens shared in the new wealth, prestige, and

optimism.

Significance con’t 1. There WERE a lot of

politicians that were exposed and voted out of office

2. Several new acts were written and passed to help break apart monopolies

3. Laws WERE established to make factories cleaner, working conditions safer, and days shorter Unions were legal Strikes, picketing, boycotting

legal▪ See effects today

4. Thanks to muckrakers like Jacob Riis, the American people learned about these terrible living conditions and slum legislation helped clean up many inner city nightmares

5. The work of these progressives will be instrumental in the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919 that will lead to Prohibition being passed under the terms of the 18th Amendment in 1920. .

Significance con’t

6. Various Supreme Court cases helped bring an end to child labor

7. Beginning in Wyoming and Utah states began to grant women the right to vote in STATE elections, but it wasn't until 1920 that women earned the right to vote in federal elections thanks to the 19th Amendment.

Significance con’t 8. Thanks to the work

of Upton Sinclair and his book "The Jungle" the federal government under Teddy Roosevelt passed two measures to eliminate unsanitary food processing practices.

9. People began to have much more involvement in government and good for community/fellow man thanks to the Progressives through work of, for example, Jane Addams

Federal Trade Act (1914) -Set up FTC or Federal Trade Commission to investigate and halt unfair and

illegal business practices. The FTC could put a halt to these illegal business practices by issuing what is known as a "cease and desist order."

2. Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) -Declared certain businesses illegal (interlocking directorates, trusts,

horizontal mergers) -Unions and the Grange were not subject to antitrust laws. This made unions

legal! -Strikes, boycotts, picketing and the collection of strike benefit funds ruled

legal C. Banking Reform - Needed elastic currency, ability to control the amount of

$ in circulation. 1. Creation of Federal Reserve System - Federal Reserve Banks in 12 districts would print and coin money as well as

set interest rates. In this way the "Fed," as it was called, could control the money supply and effect the value of currency. The more money in circulation the lower the value and inflation went up. The less money in circulation the greater the value and this would lower inflation.

2. Federal Farm Loan Act set up Farm Loan Banks to support farmers.