Transcript Ch 29 Wilsonian Progressivism

Chapter 29
Wilsonian
Progressivism at
Home and Abroad,
1912–1916
I. The “Bull Moose” Campaign of
1912
• Election of 1912:
– Democrats met at Baltimore (1912):
• Nominated Wilson, aided by William Jennings Bryan’s
switch to his side
• New Freedom program:
– Called for stronger antitrust legislation
– Banking reform
– Tariff reduction
• Progressive Republican ticket:
– A third-party with Theodore Roosevelt as the
political candidate
I. The “Bull Moose” Campaign
1912 (cont.)
– They met in Chicago August 1912 with 2,000
delegates from 40 states
• Dramatically symbolizing the rising political status of
women
• As well as the Progressive support for the cause of
social justice
• Settlement-house Jane Addams placed Roosevelt’s
name in nomination for the presidency
• Religious atmosphere suffused the convention
• Fired-up Progressives entered the campaign with
righteousness and enthusiasm.
• Roosevelt said he felt “as strong as a bull moose” thus
the bull moose symbol.
I. The “Bull Moose” Campaign
1912 (cont.)
• There were clashes of personalities between
Roosevelt and Taft.
• Roosevelt’s New Nationalism:
– Preached theology of progressive thinker
Herbert Cody in his book The Promise of
American Life
• Both favored continued consolidation of trusts and
labor unions
• Paralleled by the growth of powerful regulatory
agencies in Washington
• Campaigned for woman suffrage
I. The “Bull Mouse” Campaign
1919 (cont.)
• For a broad program of social welfare, including
minimum wage laws and “socialistic” social insurance
• Roosevelt and his “bull moose” Progressives looked
forward to the kind of activist welfare state of
Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
• Wilson’s New Freedom:
• Favored small enterprise, entrepreneurship
• And the free functioning of unregulated and
unmonopolized markets
• Shunned social welfare proposals
• And pinned their economic faith on competition—
“man on the make,” Wilson.
I. The “Bull Mouse” Campaign
1919 (cont.)
• Keynote of Wilson’s campaign was not regulation but
fragmentation of the big industrial combines
• Chiefly by means of vigorous enforcement of the
antitrust laws.
• The election of 1919:
• Offered voters a choice not merely of policies
– But of political and economic philosophies--a rarity in U.S.
History.
• The heat of the campaign cooled when, in Milwaukee,
Roosevelt was shot in the chest by a fanatic
• The Rough Rider suspended active campaigning for
more than two weeks after delivering his scheduled
speech.
p662
II. Woodrow Wilson: A Minority
President
• Election’s returns:
– Wilson with 435 electoral votes and 6,296,547
popular votes
– Roosevelt, finished second, 88 electoral votes
and 4,118,571 popular votes
– Taft with only 8 electoral votes and 3,484,720
popular votes (see Map 29.1)
– Wilson with only 41% of the popular votes was
clearly a minority president, his party won a
majority in Congress
II. Woodrow Wilson: A Minority
President (cont.)
– Taft and Roosevelt together pulled over 1.25
million more votes than the Democrats
– Progressivism rather than Wilson was the
runaway winner
• The progressive vote for Wilson and Roosevelt,
totaling 68%, far exceeded the tally of the more
conservative Taft who received only 23%.
– The Socialist candidate, Eugene V. Debs, rolled
up 900,672 popular votes, 6% of the total cast;
nearly twice as many as he netted four years
earlier
– Socialists dreamed of being in within 8 years.
II. Woodrow Wilson: A Minority
President (cont.)
– Roosevelt’s lone-wolf course:
• Was tragic for both him and his former Republican
associates
– He had bitten himself and gone mad—rephrasing William
Allen White
• The Progressive party had no future because it had
elected few candidates to state and local offices
• The Socialists elected more than a thousand
• Death by slow starvation was inevitable for the
upstart Progressive party
• The Progressives made a tremendous showing of a
hastily organized third party to spur the enactment of
their pet reforms by the Wilsonian Democrats.
II. Woodrow Wilson: A Mighty
President (cont.)
• Republicans:
– They were in unaccustomed minority status in
Congress for the next six years
– Frozen out of the White House for eight years
– Taft himself had a fruitful old age:
• Taught law for 8 years at Yale University
• In 1912 became chief justice of the Supreme Court—a
job for which he was far more happily suited than the
presidency.
Map 29-1 p663
III. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics
• (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson:
– The second Democratic president since 1861
• Professor-politician from one of the seceded
southern states
– Zachary Taylor, 64 years earlier.
• His ideal of self-determination was inspired by his
sympathy for southern independence
• His ideal of faith in the masses—if they were properly
informed—came from Jeffersonian democracy
• His inspirational political sermons from his
Presbyterian minster-father.
III. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics
(cont.)
– Wilson, a profound student of government:
– Believed the chief executive should play a dynamic role
– Convinced that Congress could not function properly unless
the president was out front and provided the leadership
– He enjoyed dramatic success, both as governor and
president, in appealing over the heads of legislators to the
sovereign people:
– Wilson suffered from serious defects of
personality:
– Though jovial and witty in private, he could be cold and
standoffish in public
– Incapable of bending and with little showmanship, he
lacked the common touch.
II. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics
(cont.)
– He loved humanity in the mass rather than the individual in
person
– His academics caused him to feel at home with scholars,
while he had to work with politicians
– An austere and somewhat arrogant intellectual, he looked
down upon lesser minds, especially journalists
– He was especially intolerant of stupid senators.
– Wilson’s burning idealism:
– He had special desire to reform ever-present wickedness
– His sense of moral righteousness made it difficult for him at
times to compromise: black was black, wrong was wrong,
and one should never compromise with wrong
– He had a strong and inflexible stubbornness.
IV. Wilson Tackles the Tariff
• Wilson’s programs:
– He called for an all-out assault on what he called
“the triple wall of privilege”: the tariff, the
banks, and the trusts
– He tackled the trust first:
– Summoned Congress into special session in early 1913
– Precedent-shattering move, he did not send his presidential
message over to Capitol to be read
– He appeared in person before a joint session of Congress
and presented his appeal with stunning eloquence and
effectiveness.
IV. Wilson Tackles the Tariff
(cont.)
– The Underwood Tariff:
• When challenged by lobbyists,
– Wilson promptly issued a combative message to the people
urging them to hold their elected representatives in line
• Public opinion worked:
– He secured late in 1913 final approval of the bill he wanted
• Provided for a substantial reduction of rates:
• Land mark in tax legislation:
– By the ratified Sixteenth Amendment—Congress enacted a
graduated income tax beginning with a moderate levy over
$3,000
– By 1917 revenue from the income tax shot ahead of
revenue from the tariffs.
p664
V. Wilson Battles the Bankers
• The Banks:
– The antiquated and inadequate banking and
currency system
• The nation’s financial structure was creeping under
the Civil War National Banking Act
– Most glaring defects and shortcoming
– The inelasticity of the currency
– Since most banks were located in New York, mobilization of
bank reserves in times of panic were badly pinched
– In 1908 Congress ordered an investigation of banking
systems headed by Senator Aldrich.
V. Wilson Battles the Bankers
(cont.)
• The Aldrich report:
– Recommended a gigantic bank with numerous branches—a
third Bank of the United States
– Democratic banking reformers heeded the findings of the
committee
– Also supported by Louis D. Brandeis in his scholarly book:
Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It (1914)
• Wilson in June 1913 appeared personally before both
houses of Congress, called for sweeping banking
reform:
– Endorse the Democratic proposal for a decentralized bank in
governments
– Opposed the Republican demands for a huge private bank
with fifteen branches.
V. Wilson Battles the Bankers
(cont.)
• The Federal Reserve Act (1913):
• Wilson appealed to the sovereign people
• The most important economic legislation between
the Civil War and the New Deal
• Federal Reserve Board:
– Appointed by the President
– It would oversee a nationwide system of 12 regional reserve
districts
– Each with its own central bank
– The final authority of the Federal Reserve Board guaranteed
a substantial measure of public control
– The board would be employed to issue paper money
V. Wilson Battles the Bankers
(cont.)
– The paper money—“Federal Reserve Notes”—backed by
commercial paper
– Thus the amount of money in circulation could be swiftly
increased as needed for the legitimate requirements of
business.
• The Federal Reserve Act was a red-letter achievement
– Carried the nation through the financial crisis of the First
World War 1914-1918
– Without it, the Republic’s progress toward the modern
economic age would have been seriously retarded.
p665
VI. The President Tames the Trusts
• The Trusts:
– Wilson appeared personally before Congress
1914 to present the third wall of privileges—
trusts:
• Federal Trade Commission Act (1914)
– Empowered a presidentially appointed commission to
research industries’ engagement in interstate commerce
– The commission was to crush monopoly at the source by
rooting out unfair trade practices:
» Including unlawful competition, false advertising,
mislabeling, adulteration, and bribery.
VI. The President Tames the Trusts
(cont.)
– The Clayton Anti-Trust (1914):
• Increased the list of practices deemed objectionable:
– Price discrimination and interlocking directorates (where
the same individual serves as director of supposedly
competing firms)
– Achieved through holding companies (see Figure 29.1)
• Conferred long-overdue benefits on labor:
– Sought to exempt labor and agricultural organization from
anti-trust prosecution, while explicitly legalizing strikes and
peaceful picketing
– Samuel Gompers, Union leader, hailed the act as the Magna
Carta of labor.
Figure 29-1 p666
VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at High
Tide
• Other progressive legislation:
– The Federal Farm Loan Act (1916):
• Made credit available to farmers at low rates of
interest—long demanded by the Populists
– The Warehouse Act (1916):
• Authorized loans on the security of staple crops—
another Populist idea
– Laws to benefit rural areas: providing for
highway construction and the establishment of
agricultural extension work in state colleges.
•
VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at
High Tide (cont.)
– La Follette Seaman’s Act (1915):
• It required decent treatment and a living wage on
American merchant ships
• It did cripple America’s merchant marine.
– The Workingmen’s Compensation Act (1916):
• Granting assistance to federal civil-service employees
during periods of disability
– In 1916 Wilson approved an act restricting child
labor on products flowing into interstate
commerce
VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at
High Tide (cont.)
• The Adamson Act (1916):
– Established an 8-hour day for all employees on
trains in interstate commerce, with extra pay for
overtime.
• The Supreme Court:
– Wilson endeared himself to the progressives
when he nominated prominent reformer Louis D.
Brandeis—first Jew to the high court bench
VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at
High Tide
• Wilson’s limit on progressivism:
– It clearly stopped short of better treatment for
blacks
• His reelection (1916):
• He needed to identify himself clearly as the candidate
of progressivism
• He appeased businesspeople by making conservative
appointments to the Federal Reserve Board
• He devoted most of his energy to cultivating
progressive support
• To remain in office he would have to woo the bull
moose voters into the Democratic fold.
VIII. New Directions in Foreign Policy
– Wilson’s reaction to earlier foreign policies:
• In contrast to Roosevelt and Taft he recoiled from an
aggressive foreign policy
• Hating imperialism, he was repelled by TR’s bigstickism
• Suspicious of Wall Street, he detested the so-called
dollar diplomacy of Taft
• In office only a week, he declared war on dollar
diplomacy
– He proclaimed that the government would not support
American investors in Latin America and China.
VIII. New Directions in Foreign
Policy (cont.)
• Persuaded Congress to repeal the Panama Canal Tolls
Act of 1912 –
– exempted American coastwide shipping from tolls
– thereby provoked sharp protests from injured Britain
• The Jones Act (1916):
– Granted the Philippines the boon of territorial status and
promised independence as soon as a “stable government”
could be established
– Wilson’s racial prejudices did not expect this to happen for a
long time
– On July 4, 1946—30 years later—the United States accepted
Philippine independence.
VIII. New Directions in Foreign
Policy (cont.)
• His Japanese situation (1913):
– California prohibited Japanese from owning land
– Tokyo, understandably irritated, lodged vigorous protests
– At Fortress Corregido, Philippians were put on around-theclock alert
– Tensions eased when Secretary of State William Jennings
Bryan pleaded the California legislature to soften its stance.
• The Haiti political situation (1914-1915):
– Political turmoil in Haiti 1914-1915 when an outraged
populace literally tore to pieces the brutal Haitian president
– Wilson dispatched marines to protect American lives and
property
– They remained in Haiti for 19 years making Haiti an
American protectorate.
VIII. New Directions in Foreign
Policy (cont.)
– In 1916 he used the Roosevelt’s corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine and concluded a treaty with Haiti:
» Providing for U.S. supervision of finances and the
police.
– In 1916 he sent marines to the Dominican Republic
» Their debt-cursed land came under American control
for 18 years
– In 1917 the United States purchased from Denmark the
Virgin Islands
– Uncle Sam was taking grip in the Caribbean Sea, with its
vital approaches to the Panama Canal (see Map 29.2).
p667
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
• Mexican revolution (1913):
• In early 1913 the new revolutionary president was
murdered and replaced by General Victoriano Huerta:
– Caused a massive migration of Mexicans to the United
States
– More than a million Spanish-speaking newcomers came and
settled in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California
– They built highways and railroads, followed the fruit
harvests as pickers
– Segregated in Spanish-speaking enclaves
» they helped to create a unique borderland culture that
blended Mexican and American folkways.
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
(cont.)
• The revolutionary bloodshed also menaced American
lives and property in Mexico:
– Hearst was among those crying for intervention in Mexico
– President Wilson again refused to practice the same old
diplomacy of his predecessors:
» Deeming it “perilous” to determine foreign policy “in
terms of material interest”
– Wilson tried hard to steer a moral course in Mexico:
– In 1914 he allowed American arms to flow to Huerta’s
principal rivals, white-bearded Venustiano Carranza and the
firebrand Francisco (“Pancho”) Villa.
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
(cont.)
• The Tampico Incident:
– The Mexico volcano erupted at the Atlantic
seaport of Tampico in April, 1914:
• When a small party of American sailors were arrested
• Mexicans released the captives and apologized
• But refused to salute with twenty-one guns the
affronted American admirals demanded
• Wilson asked Congress for authority to use force
against Mexico
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
(cont.)
• A full-dress shooting conflict was avoided by an offer
of mediation from the ABC powers—Argentina, Brazil,
and Chile.
• Huerta collapsed in July 1914 under pressure from
within and without
• He was succeeded by his archival, Venustiano
Carranza
• “Pancho” Villa, chief rival to President Carranza
– Killed 16 American mining engineers traveling through
northern Mexico in January 1916
– And a month later Villa and his followers crossed over into
Columbus, New Mexico and murdered another 19
Americans.
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
(cont.)
– General John J. (“Black Jack”) Pershing:
• Was ordered to break up the bandit band
• He hastily organized force of several thousand
mounted troops; penetrated deep into Mexico
• They clashed with Carranza’s forces
• Mauled the Villistas but missed capturing Villa
Map 29-2 p668
p669
p670
X. Thunder Across the Sea
• Europe’s powder situation:
– A Serb patriot killed the heir to the throne of
Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo:
• Vienna presented a stern ultimatum to Serbia
• An explosive chain reaction followed:
– Serbia, backed by Russia, refused to back down
– The Russian czar began to mobilize his war machine,
menacing Germany on the east
– France confronted Germany on the west
– Germans struck suddenly at France through unoffending
Belgium
X. Thunder Across the Sea
(cont.)
• Great Britain, its coastline jeopardized by the assault
on Belgium, was sucked into the conflagration on the
side of France
• Now Europe was locked in a fight to the death
• The Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, later
Turkey and Bulgaria
• The Allies: France, Britain, and Russia, later Japan and
Italy
– Americans thanked God for the ocean and self-righteously
congratulated themselves on having ancestors wise enough
to have abandoned the hell pits of Europe
– America felt strong, snug, smug, and secure—but not for
long.
XI. A Precarious Neutrality
– President Wilson’s grief at the outbreak of war
was compounded by the death of his wife
– He sorrowfully issued the routine neutrality proclamation
and called on Americans to be neutral in thought and deed
– Both sides wooed the United States, the great
neutral in the West
• The British enjoyed:
– The boon of cultural, linguistic, and economic ties with
America
– The advantage of controlling the transatlantic cables
– Their censors sheared away war stories harmful to the Allies
and drenched the United States with tales of German
bestiality.
XI. A Precarious Neutrality
(cont.)
• The Germans and the Austro-Hungarians:
– Counted on the natural sympathies of their transplanted
countrymen in America
– Powers numbered some 11 million in 1914
– Some of these recent immigrants expressed noisy sympathy
for the fatherland
– But most were simply grateful to be so distant from the fray
(see Table 29.1).
• Most Americans:
– Were anti-German from the outset
– To them Kaiser Wilhelm II seemed the embodiment of
arrogant autocracy
» An impression strengthened by German’s ruthless strike
at neutral Belgium.
XI. A Precarious Neutrality
(cont.)
– German and Austrian agents tarnished the image of the
Central Powers in American eyes :
» When they resorted to violence in American factories
and ports
– When a German operative in 1915 absentmindedly left his
briefcase on a New York elevated car:
» Its documents detailing plans for industrial sabotage
were quickly discovered and publicized.
– American opinion, already ill-disposed, was further inflamed
against the kaiser and Germany
– Yet the great majority of Americans earnestly hoped to stay
out of the horrible war.
Table 29-1 p671
XII. America Earns Blood Money
– When war broke out in Europe it was in a
worrisome business recession:
• British and French war orders pulled American
industry out onto a peak of war-born prosperity (see
Table 29.2)
• Part of the boon was financed by American bankers:
– Notably the Wall Street firm of J.P. Morgan and Company,
which advanced to the Allies the enormous sum of $2.3
million during the period of American neutrality
– The Central Powers protested bitterly:
» Against the immense trade between America and Allies
» But this did not violate the international neutrality laws.
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
» Germany was technically free to trade with the United
States
» It was prevented from doing so not by American policy
but by geography and the British navy
» The British blockaded the mines and ships across the
North Sea gateway to German ports
» Over protests from various Americans, the British
forced American vessels off the high seas
» This harassment of American shippers proved highly
effective, as trade between Germany and the United
States virtually ceased.
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
– Germany did not want to be starved out:
• Berlin announced a submarine war area around the
British Isles (see Map 29.3)
– They posed a threat to the United States—so long as Wilson
insisted on maintaining America’s neutral rights
– Berlin officials declared they would try not to sink neutral
shipping
– But they warned that mistakes would probably occur
– Wilson emphatically warned Germany that it would be held
to “strict accountability” for any attacks on American vessels
or citizens.
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
– The German submarines (known as U-boats):
• These “undersea boats” meanwhile began their
deadly work
– In the first months of 1915, they sank 90 ships in the war
zone
– The British passenger liner Lusitania was torpedoed and
sank off the coast of Ireland, May 7, 1915:
» With the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans.
• The Lusitania was carrying forty-two hundred cases of
small-arms ammunition
– A fact the Germans used to justify the sinking
– Americans were shocked and angered at this act of “mass
murder” and “piracy.”
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
– Talk of war:
• From the eastern United States
• Not the rest of the nation
– Wilson did not want to lead a disunited nation into war
– By a series of strong notes, Wilson attempted to bring the
German warlords sharply to book
– Secretary of State Bryan resigned rather than sign a
protestation that might spell shooting
– Wilson resolutely stood his ground
• The British liner, the Arabic was sunk in August, 1915:
– With the loss of two American lives
– Britain reluctantly agreed not to sink unarmed and
unresisting passenger ships without warning.
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
– The pledge appeared to be violated in March, 1916:
» When the Germans torpedoed a French passenger
steamer, the Sussex
– Infuriated Wilson informed the Germans:
» That unless they renounced the inhuman practice of
sinking merchant ships without warning he would break
diplomatic relations—
» An almost certain prelude to war.
• Germany reluctantly knuckled under President’s
Wilson’s Sussex ultimatum:
– Germany agreed to not sink passenger and merchant ships
without warning
» But attached a long string to their Sussex pledge.
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
• The German Sussex pledge:
– The United States would have to persuade the Allies to
modify what Berlin regarded as their illegal blockade
– This obviously, was something that Washington could not do
– Wilson promptly accepted the pledge, without accepting
the “string.”
– Wilson won a temporary but precarious diplomatic victory–
precarious because:
» Germany could pull the string whenever it chose
» And the president might suddenly find himself tugged
over the cliff of war.
Table 29-2 p671
Map 29-3 p672
p672
p673
p673
XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in 1916
• The presidential campaign of 1916
– Both the bull moose Progressives and the
Republicans met in Chicago:
• The Progressives nominated Theodore Roosevelt:
– But the Rough Rider had no intention of splitting the
Republicans again
– In refusing to run, he sounded the death knell of the Progressive party
– Roosevelt’s Republican admirers clamored for “Teddy”
– But the Old Guard detested the renegade who split the
party in 1912
XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in
1916 (cont.)
– They drafted Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Hughes
• The Republican Party platform:
– Condemned the Democratic tariff
– Assaults on trusts
– Wilson’s wishy-washiness in dealing with Mexico and
Germany.
• Hughes on the campaign trail:
– In anti-German areas Hughes assailed Wilson for not
standing up to the kaiser
– In isolationist areas he took a softer line
– This fence-straddling operation led to the jeer “Charles
Evasive Hughes.”
XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in
1916 (cont.)
– Hughes was further plagued by Roosevelt,
» Who was delivering a series of skin-’em-alive speeches
against “that damned Presbyterian hypocrite Wilson.”
» Frothing for war, TR privately scoffed at Hughes as a
“whiskered Wilson,” the only difference between the
two, he said, was “a shave.”
– Wilson, nominated by acclamation at the Democratic convention in St. Louis:
• His campaign slogan, “He Kept Us Out of War.”
– Democratic orators warned that by electing Hughes, the
nation would be electing a fight—with a certain frustrated
Rough Rider leading the charge.
XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in
1916 (cont.)
– On election day:
• Hughes swept the East
• Wilson went to bed that night prepared to accept
defeat
• But the rest of the nation turned the tide:
– Midwestern and westerners, attracted by Wilson’s
progressive reforms and antiwar policies, flocked to him
– The final result, in doubt for several days, hinged on
California which Wilson carried with 3,800 votes out of
about a million
XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in
1916 (cont.)
– The final count:
• Wilson with a final vote of 277 to 254 in the Electoral
College,
• 9,127,695 to 8,533,507 in the popular column (see
Map 29.4)
• The prolabor Wilson received strong support from
– The working class and from renegade bull moosers
• Wilson did not specifically promise to keep the
country out of the war.
p674
Map 29-4 p675
p676