DID THE PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTS IMPROVE LIVING AND …



DID THE PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTS IMPROVE LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS IN AMERICA?

Theodore Roosevelt

When I say I believe in a square deal I do not mean…to give every man the best hand. If the cards do not come to any man, or if they do come, and he has not the power to play them, that is his affair. All I mean is that there shall be no crookedness in the dealing. (1905)

At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value…. I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service. One word of warning…. When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor because he has not the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a chance will not make good, then he has got to quit… (1910)

Now it is very necessary that we should not flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing. There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake; and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be performed. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks of speaks or writes save of his feats with the muck-rake, speedily becomes, not a help to society, not an incitement to good, but one of the most potent forces of evil. There are—in the body politic, economic, and social—many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man, whether politician or businessman;…I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker…makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful. The liar is no better than the thief… (1906)

The man who advocates destroying the trusts by measures which would paralyze the industries of the country is at least a quack, and at worst an enemy to the Republic. Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile…. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth. (1902)

Our proposal is to help honest business activity, however extensive, and to see that it is rewarded with fair returns so that there may be no oppression either of businessmen or of the common people. We favor cooperation in business, and ask only that it be carried on in a spirit of honesty and fairness. We are against crooked business, big or little. We propose to penalize conduct and not size. But all very big business, even though honestly conducted, is fraught with such potentially of menace that there should be thoroughgoing Governmental control over it…. The people of the United States have but one instrument which they can efficiently use against the colossal combinations of business—and that instrument is the government of the United States. There once was a time in history when the limitation of government power meant increasing liberty for the people. In the present day the limitation of government power, of governmental action, means the enslavement of the people by the great corporations who can only be held in check through the extension of government power. (1912)

As to the forest reserves, their creation has damaged just one class, that is, the great lumber barons: the managers and owners of those lumber companies which by illegal, fraudulent, or unfair methods have desired to get possession of the valuable timber of the public domain, to skin the land, and to abandon it when impoverished well-nigh to the point of worthlessness…. If it had not been for the creation of the present system of forest reserves, practically every acre of timberland in the West would now be controlled or be on the point of being controlled by one huge lumber trust. The object of the beneficiaries of this trust would be to exhaust the resources of the country for their own immediate pecuniary benefit, and then when they had rendered it well-nigh worthless to turn it over to settlers…. The policy of the Government is to put actual settlers on every plot of agricultural ground within the forest reserves, and then, instead of turning these forests over to great corporations or standing by with supine indifference while they are raided by timber thieves, to enforce the law with strict honesty against all men, big or little, who try to rob the public domain; and all the time to permit the freest use of the timber, consistent with preserving the forests for the benefit of the next generation…. (1907)

|Progressive Era Federal Legislation |

|Newlands Reclamation Act |Encouraged conservation by allowing the building of dams and irrigations systems using money |

|(1902) |from the sale of public lands. |

|Elkins Act |Outlawed the use of rebates by railroad officials or shippers. |

|(1903) | |

|Pure Food and Drug Act |Required that companies accurately label the ingredients contained in processed food items. |

|(1906/1911) | |

|Meat Inspection Act |In direct response to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, this law required that meat processing |

|(1906) |plants be inspected to ensure the use of good meat and health-minded procedures. |

|Hepburn Act |Strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission, allowing it to set maximum railroad rates. |

|(1906) | |

Woodrow Wilson

It is perfectly clear to every man who has any vision of the immediate future…that we are just upon the threshold of a time when the systematic life of this country will be sustained, or at least supplemented, at every point by governmental activity. We have a great program of governmental assistance ahead of us in the cooperative life of the nation; but we dare not enter upon that program until we have freed the government. That is the point. Benevolence never developed a man or a nation. We do not want a benevolent government. We want a free and just government…. It is its [the law’s] duty to equalize conditions, to make the path of right the path of safety and advantage, to see that every man has a fair chance to live and to serve himself, to see that injustice and wrong are not wrought upon any…. The reason that America was set up was that she might be different from all the nations of the world in this; that the strong could not put the weak to the wall, that the strong could not prevent the weak from entering the race. America stands for opportunity. America stands for a free field and no favor… (“The New Freedom,” 1912)

Gentlemen say…that trusts are inevitable…they say that the particular kind of combinations that are now controlling our economic development came into existence naturally and were inevitable; and that, therefore, we have to accept them as unavoidable and administer our development through them…. I answer, nevertheless, that this attitude rests upon a confusion of thought…the trusts have not grown. They have been artificially created; they have been put together, not by natural processes, but by the will, the deliberate planning will, of men who were more powerful than their neighbors in the business world, and who wished to make their power secure against competition…. For my part, I want the [small business] to have a chance to come out. And I foresee a time when the [small businesses] will be…so much more active than the giants that it will be a case of Jack the giant killer…. I take my stand absolutely, where every progressive ought to take his stand, on the proposition that private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable. And there I will fight my battle…. What these gentlemen do not want is this: they do not want to be compelled to meet all comers on equal terms. I am perfectly willing that they should beat any competitor by fair means; but I know the foul means they have adopted, and I know that they can be stopped by law…there must be no squeezing out the beginner…. All the fair competition you choose, but no unfair competition of any kind…. The only thing that can ever make a free country is to keep a free and hopeful heart under every jacket in it. Honest American industry has always thrived…on freedom; it has never thrived on monopoly…. I know, and every man in his heart knows, that the only way to enrich America is to make it possible for any man who has the brains to get into the game… (“The New Freedom,“ 1912)

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a commission is created and established, to be known as the Federal Trade Commission.

Section 5. That unfair methods of competition in commerce are hereby declared unlawful. The commission is hereby empowered and directed to prevent persons, partnerships, or corporations…from using unfair methods of competition in commerce. Whenever the Commission shall have reason to believe that any such person, partnership, or corporation has been or is using any unfair method of competition in commerce…it shall issue…a complaint stating its charges…. If upon such hearing the Commission shall be of the opinion that the method of competition or the act or practice in question is prohibited by this subchapter, it shall make a report in writing in which it shall state its findings as to the facts and shall issue…an order requiring such person, partnership, or corporation to cease and desist from using such method of competition or such act or practice. (Federal Trade Commission Act, September 26, 1914)

The Commission will be smelling around for rats all the time, and when it is on the trail of one, it will call it to the attention of the Department of Justice. (1914)

It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce, either directly or indirectly, to discriminate in price between different purchasers of commodities of like grade and quality, where either or any of the purchases involved in such discrimination are in commerce, where such commodities are sold for use, consumption, or resale within the United States or any Territory thereof or the District of Columbia or any insular possession or other place under the jurisdiction of the United States, and where the effect of such discrimination may be substantially to lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce, or to injure, destroy, or prevent competition with any person who either grants or knowingly receives the benefit of such discrimination, or with customers of either of them… (Clayton Antitrust Act, October 15, 1914)

Important Legislation Passed During Wilson’s Presidency

|Act |Purpose |

|Federal Trade Commission Act (1914) |Established the Federal Trade Commission, a bipartisan body of five members appointed by the President |

| |for seven year terms. This Commission was authorized to issue Cease and Desist orders to large |

| |corporations. |

|Underwood Tariff Bill (1913) |Imposed the first federal income tax following the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment and lowered |

| |basic tariff rates from 41% to 27%. |

|Federal Reserve Act (1913) |Created the Federal Reserve System, the central bank of the United States of America and gave the |

| |national government sole power to coin money. |

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