Governors and the Progressive Movement - Hardcover

Berman, David R

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1607329158 ISBN 13: 9781607329152

Verlag: University Press of Colorado, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

Governors and the Progressive Movement is the first comprehensive overview of the Progressive movement’s unfolding at the state level, covering every state in existence at the time through the words and actions of state governors. It explores the personalities, ideas, and activities of this period’s governors, including lesser-known but important ones who deserve far more attention than they have previously been given.

During this time of greedy corporations, political bosses, corrupt legislators, and conflict along racial, class, labor/management, urban/rural, and state/local lines, debates raged over the role of government and issues involving corporate power, racism, voting rights, and gender equality—issues that still characterize American politics. Author David R. Berman describes the different roles each governor played in the unfolding of reform around these concerns in their states. He details their diverse leadership qualities, governing styles, and accomplishments, as well as the sharp regional differences in their outlooks and performance, and finds that while they were often disposed toward reform, governors held differing views on issues—and how to resolve them.

Governors and the Progressive Movement examines a time of major changes in US history using relatively rare and unexplored collections of letters, newspaper articles, and government records written by and for minority group members, labor activists, and those on both the far right and far left. By analyzing the governors of the era, Berman presents an interesting perspective on the birth and implementation of controversial reforms that have acted as cornerstones for many current political issues. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of US history, political science, public policy, and administration.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David R. Berman is a senior research fellow at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy and a professor emeritus of political science at Arizona State University. He is the author of ten books, including Reformers, Corporations, and the Electorate; Radicalism in the Mountain West, 1890–1920; Politics, Labor, and the War on Big Business; and over 100 published papers, book chapters, or refereed articles dealing with state and local government, politics, and public policy.
 

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Governors and the Progressive Movement

By DAVID R. BERMAN

University Press of Colorado

Copyright © 2019 University Press of Colorado
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-60732-915-2

Contents

Preface, 
1. Progressive Reform and the Governors, 
2. The Flow of Party Politics and Reform, 1890–1920, 
3. Midwesterners Paving the Way: Altgeld, Pingree, La Follette, with Follow-ups by Deneen, Dunne, Osborn, and McGovern, 
4. More from the Midwest: Cummins, Johnson, Folk, Harmon, Cox, and Marshall, 
5. Raising Hell on the Plains: Lewelling, Hoch, Stubbs, Sheldon, Burke, and Norbeck, 
6. Mixing Race and Reform in the South: The Deep South, with Tillman, Blease, Vardaman, Bilbo, Hoke Smith, and Comer, 
7. The Southern Periphery: Broward, Davis, Hogg, and Haskell, 
8. The Upper South: Not So Southern, a Succession of Progressive Governors, 
9. Going East: Roosevelt, Hughes, Al Smith, Governing and Dealing with the Bosses, 
10. Wilson of New Jersey, Scholar and Tactician, Confronting the Bosses, 
11. The Rest of the East: Republican and Conservative, Doing What Could Be Done with Boss and Corporate Control and Only Limited Power, 
12. Western "Radicalism": Hiram Johnson, Curtailing the Railroads, Getting beyond Politics as Usual, 
13. Agitation and Activity in the Northwest: Chamberlain, West, Rogers, and Carey, 
14. The Southwest: Shafroth, Bamberger, and Hunt, 
15. Governors and Reform: The Record and the Legacy, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Progressive Reform and the Governors

The Populist and Progressive movements in the United States, starting in the last decade of the nineteenth century and running through the first two of the twentieth century, though differing in their base of support, had some common themes. Among the most central of these were the need to purify and democratize the governmental system through political and structural reforms, the need to rein in the political and economic power of giant corporations, and, more broadly, the need to bring to power an energetic and positive government that would serve the interests of the many rather than a privileged few.

Though reform activity first took root on the local level in many states, much of the critical action from 1890 to 1920 took place at the state level. The states had the authority — they could act in a variety of areas, and their willingness to do so was of extreme importance to a flood of reformers, organizations, and interest groups. The initial problem was getting the states to respond. Throughout the country reformers on the state level strove to democratize and purify state political systems. Once the choke hold of the corrupting special interests on government was broken and power was turned over to the people, reformers felt they could move on to address matters of basic economic and social justice.

In a time of rapid industrialization and urbanization, reform meant more spending on such matters as public education, roads, health protection, and to help out those who needed help, even though this meant departing from the norm of individualism, increasing the functions of government, and raising taxes. Reform also meant not only harnessing the power of large corporations but distributing economic benefits more widely and shifting more of the tax burden to the wealthy through personal income, inheritance, and corporate taxes. On the labor front it involved hour and wage regulations, factory and mine inspection, worker's compensation, and ending injunctions against organizing unions. Reformers too thought in terms of improving morality by curbing or banning drinking and gambling, and many went off in the direction of perfecting the population through eugenics legislation. Many focused on prison reform and the abolition of the death penalty, protecting the rights of workers on industrial battlegrounds, and coping with violent vigilante actions and riots in minority areas.

Interests, Machines, Legislators, Divisions among Reformers

Much of the initial and continuing focus of reformers was on destroying the network of special interest politics and corruption formed by leading business interests, political machines associated with the major parties, and officeholders, especially state legislators. They saw corrupt governing systems throughout the country.

Reformers targeted a variety of large businesses, including those engaged in railroading, telephone and telegraph services, the provision of gas and electricity, transit, insurance, banking, mining, and timber. Railroads were an early and special target just about everywhere. Charges against them included not paying their fair share of the taxes, setting excessive and discriminatory passenger and freight rates, being partial to particular shippers, hording land allocated to them by the federal or state governments needed for development, mistreatment of their employees, and through means ranging from giving free railroad passes to direct cash bribes to politicians and lavishly entertaining them, corrupting the political system. Meanwhile, on the local level public utilities, especially local street railway (aka traction) companies got unlimited franchises and everything else they wanted through the bribery of city officials.

During the 1890s and early 1900s reformers put a great deal of emphasis on the corrupting effects of the railroad pass. A leading Populist, for example, argued that "the power for evil of the Free Pass Bribery System is far greater than bribery with money. Few men can be bribed with money, but many men can be bribed with a free railroad pass." All this led to a situation in which "Instead of public officials compelling railroads to obey the law, the railroads compel the public officials to serve them and betray the people." Railroad officials and other spokespeople for large corporations saw the problem differently. To many a business person, paying off legislators was simply a routine cost of doing business and businesspeople were not the only ones to be blamed. As mining entrepreneur William A. Clark, who routinely bribed state legislators, said in his own defense: "I never bought a man who wasn't for sale." Often legislators took the initiative and "sandbagged" businesspeople by threatening to push for laws detrimental to them if no bribe was forthcoming. In 1904 an observer in Missouri compared the sandbagger to the "corrupt and unscrupulous" highwayman who "places not a revolver" but a "legislative bill to the head of his victim and demands money."

In the period 1890–1920, as now, people used the term "political machine" as a pejorative to put a bad label on a political organization they did not like. Still, in many parts of the country those who used the term had a clear vision of a particular type of political organization associated with either the Republican or Democratic Party headed by a boss who was able to deliver enough votes to heavily influence, if not control, the actions of elected state and local officials. As boss Tom Pendergast of Kansas City, Missouri, put it: "The delivery of the votes is what counts ... Politics is a business, just like anything else." Bosses were in the business of controlling party nominations and winning elections. They thrived by rewarding those who worked for them with governmental jobs and by selling their ability to control legislation and administrative decisions to those willing to pay for their services.

Party bosses did not always oppose Progressive reform — some were "easy bosses" willing to go along,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University Press of Colorado
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1607329158
• ISBN 13: 9781607329152
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 344
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar