Roosevelt's View of the Constitution.—Equally significant was Roosevelt's attitude toward the Constitution and the office of President. He utterly repudiated the narrow construction of our national charter. He held that the Constitution "should be treated as the greatest document ever devised by the wit of man to aid a people in exercising every power necessary for its own betterment, not as a strait-jacket cunningly fashioned to strangle growth." He viewed the presidency as he did the Constitution. Strict constructionists of the Jeffersonian school, of whom there were many on occasion even in the Republican party, had taken a view that the President could do nothing that he was not specifically authorized by the Constitution to do. Roosevelt took exactly the opposite position. It was his opinion that it was not only the President's right but his duty "to do anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or the laws." He went on to say that he acted "for the common well-being of all our people whenever and in whatever manner was necessary, unless prevented by direct constitutional or legislative prohibition."

The Trusts and Railways.—To the trust question, Roosevelt devoted especial attention. This was unavoidable. By far the larger part of the business of the country was done by corporations as distinguished from partnerships and individual owners. The growth of these gigantic aggregations of capital had been the leading feature in American industrial development during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. In the conquest of business by trusts and "the resulting private fortunes of great magnitude," the Populists and the Democrats had seen a grievous danger to the republic. "Plutocracy has taken the place of democracy; the tariff breeds trusts; let us destroy therefore the tariff and the trusts"—such was the battle cry which had been taken up by Bryan and his followers.

President Roosevelt countered vigorously. He rejected the idea that the trusts were the product of the tariff or of governmental action of any kind. He insisted that they were the outcome of "natural economic forces": (1) destructive competition among business men compelling them to avoid ruin by cooeperation in fixing prices; (2) the growth of markets on a national scale and even international scale calling for vast accumulations of capital to carry on such business; (3) the possibility of immense savings by the union of many plants under one management. In the corporation he saw a new stage in the development of American industry. Unregulated competition he regarded as "the source of evils which all men concede must be remedied if this civilization of ours is to survive." The notion, therefore, that these immense business concerns should be or could be broken up by a decree of law, Roosevelt considered absurd.

At the same time he proposed that "evil trusts" should be prevented from "wrong-doing of any kind"; that is, punished for plain swindling, for making agreements to limit output, for refusing to sell to customers who dealt with rival firms, and for conspiracies with railways to ruin competitors by charging high freight rates and for similar abuses. Accordingly, he proposed, not the destruction of the trusts, but their regulation by the government. This, he contended, would preserve the advantages of business on a national scale while preventing the evils that accompanied it. The railway company he declared to be a public servant. "Its rates should be just to and open to all shippers alike." So he answered those who thought that trusts and railway combinations were private concerns to be managed solely by their owners without let or hindrance and also those who thought trusts and railway combinations could be abolished by tariff reduction or criminal prosecution.

The Labor Question.—On the labor question, then pressing to the front in public interest, President Roosevelt took advanced ground for his time. He declared that the working-man, single-handed and empty-handed, threatened with starvation if unemployed, was no match for the employer who was able to bargain and wait. This led him, accordingly, to accept the principle of the trade union; namely, that only by collective bargaining can labor be put on a footing to measure its strength equally with capital. While he severely arraigned labor leaders who advocated violence and destructive doctrines, he held that "the organization of labor into trade unions and federations is necessary, is beneficent, and is one of the greatest possible agencies in the attainment of a true industrial, as well as a true political, democracy in the United States." The last resort of trade unions in labor disputes, the strike, he approved in case negotiations failed to secure "a fair deal."

He thought, however, that labor organizations, even if wisely managed, could not solve all the pressing social questions of the time. The aid of the government at many points he believed to be necessary to eliminate undeserved poverty, industrial diseases, unemployment, and the unfortunate consequences of industrial accidents. In his first message of 1901, for instance, he urged that workers injured in industry should have certain and ample compensation. From time to time he advocated other legislation to obtain what he called "a larger measure of social and industrial justice."

Great Riches and Taxation.—Even the challenge of the radicals, such as the Populists, who alleged that "the toil of millions is boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few"—challenges which his predecessors did not consider worthy of notice—President Roosevelt refused to let pass without an answer. In his first message he denied the truth of the common saying that the rich were growing richer and the poor were growing poorer. He asserted that, on the contrary, the average man, wage worker, farmer, and small business man, was better off than ever before in the history of our country. That there had been abuses in the accumulation of wealth he did not pretend to ignore, but he believed that even immense fortunes, on the whole, represented positive benefits conferred upon the country. Nevertheless he felt that grave dangers to the safety and the happiness of the people lurked in great inequalities of wealth. In 1906 he wrote that he wished it were in his power to prevent the heaping up of enormous fortunes. The next year, to the astonishment of many leaders in his own party, he boldly announced in a message to Congress that he approved both income and inheritance taxes, then generally viewed as Populist or Democratic measures. He even took the stand that such taxes should be laid in order to bring about a more equitable distribution of wealth and greater equality of opportunity among citizens.

LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE ACTIVITIES

Economic Legislation.—When President Roosevelt turned from the field of opinion he found himself in a different sphere. Many of his views were too advanced for the members of his party in Congress, and where results depended upon the making of new laws, his progress was slow. Nevertheless, in his administrations several measures were enacted that bore the stamp of his theories, though it could hardly be said that he dominated Congress to the same degree as did some other Presidents. The Hepburn Railway Act of 1906 enlarged the interstate commerce commission; it extended the commission's power over oil pipe lines, express companies, and other interstate carriers; it gave the commission the right to reduce rates found to be unreasonable and discriminatory; it forbade "midnight tariffs," that is, sudden changes in rates favoring certain shippers; and it prohibited common carriers from transporting goods owned by themselves, especially coal, except for their own proper use. Two important pure food and drug laws, enacted during the same year, were designed to protect the public against diseased meats and deleterious foods and drugs. A significant piece of labor legislation was an act of the same Congress making interstate railways liable to damages for injuries sustained by their employees. When this measure was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court it was reenacted with the objectionable clauses removed. A second installment of labor legislation was offered in the law of 1908 limiting the hours of railway employees engaged as trainmen or telegraph operators.



Reclamation and Conservation.—The open country—the deserts, the forests, waterways, and the public lands—interested President Roosevelt no less than railway and industrial questions. Indeed, in his first message to Congress he placed the conservation of natural resources among "the most vital internal problems" of the age, and forcibly emphasized an issue that had been discussed in a casual way since Cleveland's first administration. The suggestion evoked an immediate response in Congress. Under the leadership of Senator Newlands, of Nevada, the Reclamation Act of 1902 was passed, providing for the redemption of the desert areas of the West. The proceeds from the sale of public lands were dedicated to the construction of storage dams and sluiceways to hold water and divert it as needed to the thirsty sands. Furthermore it was stipulated that the rents paid by water users should go into a reclamation fund to continue the good work forever. Construction was started immediately under the terms of the law. Within seventeen years about 1,600,000 acres had been reclaimed and more than a million were actually irrigated. In the single year 1918, the crops of the irrigated districts were valued at approximately $100,000,000.

In his first message, also, President Roosevelt urged the transfer of all control over national forests to trained men in the Bureau of Forestry—a recommendation carried out in 1907 when the Forestry Service was created. In every direction noteworthy advances were made in the administration of the national domain. The science of forestry was improved and knowledge of the subject spread among the people. Lands in the national forest available for agriculture were opened to settlers. Water power sites on the public domain were leased for a term of years to private companies instead of being sold outright. The area of the national forests was enlarged from 43 million acres to 194 million acres by presidential proclamation—more than 43 million acres being added in one year, 1907. The men who turned sheep and cattle to graze on the public lands were compelled to pay a fair rental, much to their dissatisfaction. Fire prevention work was undertaken in the forests on a large scale, reducing the appalling, annual destruction of timber. Millions of acres of coal land, such as the government had been carelessly selling to mining companies at low figures, were withdrawn from sale and held until Congress was prepared to enact laws for the disposition of them in the public interest. Prosecutions were instituted against men who had obtained public lands by fraud and vast tracts were recovered for the national domain. An agitation was begun which bore fruit under the administrations of Taft and Wilson in laws reserving to the federal government the ownership of coal, water power, phosphates, and other natural resources while authorizing corporations to develop them under leases for a period of years.

The Prosecution of the Trusts.—As an executive, President Roosevelt was also a distinct "personality." His discrimination between "good" and "bad" trusts led him to prosecute some of them with vigor. On his initiative, the Northern Securities Company, formed to obtain control of certain great western railways, was dissolved by order of the Supreme Court. Proceedings were instituted against the American Tobacco Company and the Standard Oil Company as monopolies in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust law. The Sugar Trust was found guilty of cheating the New York customs house and some of the minor officers were sent to prison. Frauds in the Post-office Department were uncovered and the offenders brought to book. In fact hardly a week passed without stirring news of "wrong doers" and "malefactors" haled into federal courts.

The Great Coal Strike.—The Roosevelt theory that the President could do anything for public welfare not forbidden by the Constitution and the laws was put to a severe test in 1902. A strike of the anthracite coal miners, which started in the summer, ran late into the autumn. Industries were paralyzed for the want of coal; cities were threatened with the appalling menace of a winter without heat. Governors and mayors were powerless and appealed for aid. The mine owners rejected the demands of the men and refused to permit the arbitration of the points in dispute, although John Mitchell, the leader of the miners, repeatedly urged it. After observing closely the course affairs, President Roosevelt made up his mind that the situation was intolerable. He arranged to have the federal troops, if necessary, take possession of the mines and operate them until the strike could be settled. He then invited the contestants to the White House and by dint of hard labor induced them to accept, as a substitute or compromise, arbitration by a commission which he appointed. Thus, by stepping outside the Constitution and acting as the first citizen of the land, President Roosevelt averted a crisis of great magnitude.

The Election of 1904.—The views and measures which he advocated with such vigor aroused deep hostility within as well as without his party. There were rumors of a Republican movement to defeat his nomination in 1904 and it was said that the "financial and corporation interests" were in arms against him. A prominent Republican paper in New York City accused him of having "stolen Mr. Bryan's thunder," by harrying the trusts and favoring labor unions. When the Republican convention assembled in Chicago, however, the opposition disappeared and Roosevelt was nominated by acclamation.

This was the signal for a change on the part of Democratic leaders. They denounced the President as erratic, dangerous, and radical and decided to assume the moderate role themselves. They put aside Mr. Bryan and selected as their candidate, Judge Alton B. Parker, of New York, a man who repudiated free silver and made a direct appeal for the conservative vote. The outcome of the reversal was astounding. Judge Parker's vote fell more than a million below that cast for Bryan in 1900; of the 476 electoral votes he received only 140. Roosevelt, in addition to sweeping the Republican sections, even invaded Democratic territory, carrying the state of Missouri. Thus vindicated at the polls, he became more outspoken than ever. His leadership in the party was so widely recognized that he virtually selected his own successor.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT TAFT

The Campaign of 1908.—Long before the end of his elective term, President Roosevelt let it be known that he favored as his successor, William Howard Taft, of Ohio, his Secretary of War. To attain this end he used every shred of his powerful influence. When the Republican convention assembled, Mr. Taft easily won the nomination. Though the party platform was conservative in tone, he gave it a progressive tinge by expressing his personal belief in the popular election of United States Senators, an income tax, and other liberal measures. President Roosevelt announced his faith in the Republican candidate and appealed to the country for his election.

The turn in Republican affairs now convinced Mr. Bryan that the signs were propitious for a third attempt to win the presidency. The disaster to Judge Parker had taught the party that victory did not lie in a conservative policy. With little difficulty, therefore, the veteran leader from Nebraska once more rallied the Democrats around his standard, won the nomination, and wrote a platform vigorously attacking the tariff, trusts, and monopolies. Supported by a loyal following, he entered the lists, only to meet another defeat. Though he polled almost a million and a half more votes than did Judge Parker in 1904, the palm went to Mr. Taft.

The Tariff Revision and Party Dissensions.—At the very beginning of his term, President Taft had to face the tariff issue. He had met it in the campaign. Moved by the Democratic demand for a drastic reduction, he had expressed opinions which were thought to imply a "downward revision." The Democrats made much of the implication and the Republicans from the Middle West rejoiced in it. Pressure was coming from all sides. More than ten years had elapsed since the enactment of the Dingley bill and the position of many industries had been altered with the course of time. Evidently the day for revision—at best a thankless task—had arrived. Taft accepted the inevitable and called Congress in a special session. Until the midsummer of 1909, Republican Senators and Representatives wrangled over tariff schedules, the President making little effort to influence their decisions. When on August 5 the Payne-Aldrich bill became a law, a breach had been made in Republican ranks. Powerful Senators from the Middle West had spoken angrily against many of the high rates imposed by the bill. They had even broken with their party colleagues to vote against the entire scheme of tariff revision.

The Income Tax Amendment.—The rift in party harmony was widened by another serious difference of opinion. During the debate on the tariff bill, there was a concerted movement to include in it an income tax provision—this in spite of the decision of the Supreme Court in 1895 declaring it unconstitutional. Conservative men were alarmed by the evident willingness of some members to flout a solemn decree of that eminent tribunal. At the same time they saw a powerful combination of Republicans and Democrats determined upon shifting some of the burden of taxation to large incomes. In the press of circumstances, a compromise was reached. The income tax bill was dropped for the present; but Congress passed the sixteenth amendment to the Constitution, authorizing taxes upon incomes from whatever source they might be derived, without reference to any apportionment among the states on the basis of population. The states ratified the amendment and early in 1913 it was proclaimed.

President Taft's Policies.—After the enactment of the tariff bill, Taft continued to push forward with his legislative program. He recommended, and Congress created, a special court of commerce with jurisdiction, among other things, over appeals from the interstate commerce commission, thus facilitating judicial review of the railway rates fixed and the orders issued by that body. This measure was quickly followed by an act establishing a system of postal savings banks in connection with the post office—a scheme which had long been opposed by private banks. Two years later, Congress defied the lobby of the express companies and supplemented the savings banks with a parcels post system, thus enabling the American postal service to catch up with that of other progressive nations. With a view to improving the business administration of the federal government, the President obtained from Congress a large appropriation for an economy and efficiency commission charged with the duty of inquiring into wasteful and obsolete methods and recommending improved devices and practices. The chief result of this investigation was a vigorous report in favor of a national budget system, which soon found public backing.

President Taft negotiated with England and France general treaties providing for the arbitration of disputes which were "justiciable" in character even though they might involve questions of "vital interest and national honor." They were coldly received in the Senate and so amended that Taft abandoned them altogether. A tariff reciprocity agreement with Canada, however, he forced through Congress in the face of strong opposition from his own party. After making a serious breach in Republican ranks, he was chagrined to see the whole scheme come to naught by the overthrow of the Liberals in the Canadian elections of 1911.

Prosecution of the Trusts.—The party schism was even enlarged by what appeared to be the successful prosecution of several great combinations. In two important cases, the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the Standard Oil Company and the American Tobacco Company on the ground that they violated the Sherman Anti-Trust law. In taking this step Chief Justice White was at some pains to state that the law did not apply to combinations which did not "unduly" restrain trade. His remark, construed to mean that the Court would not interfere with corporations as such, became the subject of a popular outcry against the President and the judges.

PROGRESSIVE INSURGENCY AND THE ELECTION OF 1912

Growing Dissensions.—All in all, Taft's administration from the first day had been disturbed by party discord. High words had passed over the tariff bill and disgruntled members of Congress could not forget them. To differences over issues were added quarrels between youth and old age. In the House of Representatives there developed a group of young "insurgent" Republicans who resented the dominance of the Speaker, Joseph G. Cannon, and other members of the "old guard," as they named the men of long service and conservative minds. In 1910, the insurgents went so far as to join with the Democrats in a movement to break the Speaker's sway by ousting him from the rules committee and depriving him of the power to appoint its members. The storm was brewing. In the autumn of that year the Democrats won a clear majority in the House of Representatives and began an open battle with President Taft by demanding an immediate downward revision of the tariff.

The Rise of the Progressive Republicans.—Preparatory to the campaign of 1912, the dissenters within the Republican party added the prefix "Progressive" to their old title and began to organize a movement to prevent the renomination of Mr. Taft. As early as January 21, 1911, they formed a Progressive Republican League at the home of Senator La Follette of Wisconsin and launched an attack on the Taft measures and policies. In October they indorsed Mr. La Follette as "the logical Republican candidate" and appealed to the party for support. The controversy over the tariff had grown into a formidable revolt against the occupant of the White House.

Roosevelt in the Field.—After looking on for a while, ex-President Roosevelt took a hand in the fray. Soon after his return in 1910 from a hunting trip in Africa and a tour in Europe, he made a series of addresses in which he formulated a progressive program. In a speech in Kansas, he favored regulation of the trusts, a graduated income tax bearing heavily on great fortunes, tariff revision schedule by schedule, conservation of natural resources, labor legislation, the direct primary, and the recall of elective officials. In an address before the Ohio state constitutional convention in February, 1912, he indorsed the initiative and referendum and announced a doctrine known as the "recall of judicial decisions." This was a new and radical note in American politics. An ex-President of the United States proposed that the people at the polls should have the right to reverse the decision of a judge who set aside any act of a state legislature passed in the interests of social welfare. The Progressive Republicans, impressed by these addresses, turned from La Follette to Roosevelt and on February 24, induced him to come out openly as a candidate against Taft for the Republican nomination.

The Split in the Republican Party.—The country then witnessed the strange spectacle of two men who had once been close companions engaged in a bitter rivalry to secure a majority of the delegates to the Republican convention to be held at Chicago. When the convention assembled, about one-fourth of the seats were contested, the delegates for both candidates loudly proclaiming the regularity of their election. In deciding between the contestants the national committee, after the usual hearings, settled the disputes in such a way that Taft received a safe majority. After a week of negotiation, Roosevelt and his followers left the Republican party. Most of his supporters withdrew from the convention and the few who remained behind refused to answer the roll call. Undisturbed by this formidable bolt, the regular Republicans went on with their work. They renominated Mr. Taft and put forth a platform roundly condemning such Progressive doctrines as the recall of judges.

The Formation of the Progressive Party.—The action of the Republicans in seating the Taft delegates was vigorously denounced by Roosevelt. He declared that the convention had no claim to represent the voters of the Republican party; that any candidate named by it would be "the beneficiary of a successful fraud"; and that it would be deeply discreditable to any man to accept the convention's approval under such circumstances. The bitterness of his followers was extreme. On July 8, a call went forth for a "Progressive" convention to be held in Chicago on August 5. The assembly which duly met on that day was a unique political conference. Prominence was given to women delegates, and "politicians" were notably absent. Roosevelt himself, who was cheered as a conquering hero, made an impassioned speech setting forth his "confession of faith." He was nominated by acclamation; Governor Hiram Johnson of California was selected as his companion candidate for Vice President. The platform endorsed such political reforms as woman suffrage, direct primaries, the initiative, referendum, and recall, popular election of United States Senators, and the short ballot. It favored a program of social legislation, including the prohibition of child labor and minimum wages for women. It approved the regulation, rather than the dissolution, of the trusts. Like apostles in a new and lofty cause, the Progressives entered a vigorous campaign for the election of their distinguished leader.

Woodrow Wilson and the Election of 1912.—With the Republicans divided, victory loomed up before the Democrats. Naturally, a terrific contest over the nomination occurred at their convention in Baltimore. Champ Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Governor Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, were the chief contestants. After tossing to and fro for seven long, hot days, and taking forty-six ballots, the delegates, powerfully influenced by Mr. Bryan, finally decided in favor of the governor. As a professor, a writer on historical and political subjects, and the president of Princeton University, Mr. Wilson had become widely known in public life. As the governor of New Jersey he had attracted the support of the progressives in both parties. With grim determination he had "waged war on the bosses," and pushed through the legislature measures establishing direct primaries, regulating public utilities, and creating a system of workmen's compensation in industries. During the presidential campaign that followed Governor Wilson toured the country and aroused great enthusiasm by a series of addresses later published under the title of The New Freedom. He declared that "the government of the United States is at present the foster child of the special interests." He proposed to free the country by breaking the dominance of "the big bankers, the big manufacturers, the big masters of commerce, the heads of railroad corporations and of steamship corporations."

In the election Governor Wilson easily secured a majority of the electoral votes, and his party, while retaining possession of the House of Representatives, captured the Senate as well. The popular verdict, however, indicated a state of confusion in the country. The combined Progressive and Republican vote exceeded that of the Democrats by 1,300,000. The Socialists, with Eugene V. Debs as their candidate again, polled about 900,000 votes, more than double the number received four years before. Thus, as the result of an extraordinary upheaval the Republicans, after holding the office of President for sixteen years, passed out of power, and the government of the country was intrusted to the Democrats under the leadership of a man destined to be one of the outstanding figures of the modern age, Woodrow Wilson.

General References

J.B. Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt and His Time (2 vols.).

Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography; New Nationalism; Progressive Principles.

W.H. Taft, Popular Government.

Walter Weyl, The New Democracy.

H. Croly, The Promise of American Life.

J.B. Bishop, The Panama Gateway.

J.B. Scott, The Hague Peace Conferences.

W.B. Munro (ed.), Initiative, Referendum, and Recall.

C.R. Van Hise, The Conservation of Natural Resources.

Gifford Pinchot, The Fight for Conservation.

W.F. Willoughby, Territories and Dependencies of the United States (1905).

Research Topics

Roosevelt and "Big Business."—Haworth, The United States in Our Own Time, pp. 281-289; F.A. Ogg, National Progress (American Nation Series), pp. 40-75; Paxson, The New Nation (Riverside Series), pp. 293-307.

Our Insular Possessions.—Elson, History of the United States, pp. 896-904.

Latin-American Relations.—Haworth, pp. 294-299; Ogg, pp. 254-257.

The Panama Canal.—Haworth, pp. 300-309; Ogg, pp. 266-277; Paxson, pp. 286-292; Elson, pp. 906-911.

Conservation.—Haworth, pp. 331-334; Ogg, pp. 96-115; Beard, American Government and Politics (3d ed.), pp. 401-416.

Republican Dissensions under Taft's Administration.—Haworth, pp. 351-360; Ogg, pp. 167-186; Paxson, pp. 324-342; Elson, pp. 916-924.

The Campaign of 1912.—Haworth, pp. 360-379; Ogg, pp. 187-208.

Questions

1. Compare the early career of Roosevelt with that of some other President.

2. Name the chief foreign and domestic questions of the Roosevelt-Taft administrations.

3. What international complications were involved in the Panama Canal problem?

4. Review the Monroe Doctrine. Discuss Roosevelt's applications of it.

5. What is the strategic importance of the Caribbean to the United States?

6. What is meant by the sea power? Trace the voyage of the fleet around the world and mention the significant imperial and commercial points touched.

7. What is meant by the question: "Does the Constitution follow the flag?"

8. Trace the history of self-government in Porto Rico. In the Philippines.

9. What is Cuba's relation to the United States?

10. What was Roosevelt's theory of our Constitution?

11. Give Roosevelt's views on trusts, labor, taxation.

12. Outline the domestic phases of Roosevelt's administrations.

13. Account for the dissensions under Taft.

14. Trace the rise of the Progressive movement.

15. What was Roosevelt's progressive program?

16. Review Wilson's early career and explain the underlying theory of The New Freedom.



CHAPTER XXII

THE SPIRIT OF REFORM IN AMERICA

AN AGE OF CRITICISM

Attacks on Abuses in American Life.—The crisis precipitated by the Progressive uprising was not a sudden and unexpected one. It had been long in preparation. The revolt against corruption in politics which produced the Liberal Republican outbreak in the seventies and the Mugwump movement of the eighties was followed by continuous criticism of American political and economic development. From 1880 until his death in 1892, George William Curtis, as president of the Civil Service Reform Association, kept up a running fire upon the abuses of the spoils system. James Bryce, an observant English scholar and man of affairs, in his great work, The American Commonwealth, published in 1888, by picturing fearlessly the political rings and machines which dominated the cities, gave the whole country a fresh shock. Six years later Henry D. Lloyd, in a powerful book entitled Wealth against Commonwealth, attacked in scathing language certain trusts which had destroyed their rivals and bribed public officials. In 1903 Miss Ida Tarbell, an author of established reputation in the historical field, gave to the public an account of the Standard Oil Company, revealing the ruthless methods of that corporation in crushing competition. About the same time Lincoln Steffens exposed the sordid character of politics in several municipalities in a series of articles bearing the painful heading: The Shame of the Cities. The critical spirit appeared in almost every form; in weekly and monthly magazines, in essays and pamphlets, in editorials and news stories, in novels like Churchill's Coniston and Sinclair's The Jungle. It became so savage and so wanton that the opening years of the twentieth century were well named "the age of the muckrakers."

The Subjects of the Criticism.—In this outburst of invective, nothing was spared. It was charged that each of the political parties had fallen into the hands of professional politicians who devoted their time to managing conventions, making platforms, nominating candidates, and dictating to officials; in return for their "services" they sold offices and privileges. It was alleged that mayors and councils had bargained away for private benefit street railway and other franchises. It was asserted that many powerful labor unions were dominated by men who blackmailed employers. Some critics specialized in descriptions of the poverty, slums, and misery of great cities. Others took up "frenzied finance" and accused financiers of selling worthless stocks and bonds to an innocent public. Still others professed to see in the accumulations of millionaires the downfall of our republic.

The Attack on "Invisible Government."—Some even maintained that the control of public affairs had passed from the people to a sinister minority called "the invisible government." So eminent and conservative a statesman as the Hon. Elihu Root lent the weight of his great name to such an imputation. Speaking of his native state, New York, he said: "What is the government of this state? What has it been during the forty years of my acquaintance with it? The government of the Constitution? Oh, no; not half the time or half way.... From the days of Fenton and Conkling and Arthur and Cornell and Platt, from the days of David B. Hill down to the present time, the government of the state has presented two different lines of activity: one, of the constitutional and statutory officers of the state and the other of the party leaders; they call them party bosses. They call the system—I don't coin the phrase—the system they call 'invisible government.' For I don't know how many years Mr. Conkling was the supreme ruler in this state. The governor did not count, the legislature did not count, comptrollers and secretaries of state and what not did not count. It was what Mr. Conkling said, and in a great outburst of public rage he was pulled down. Then Mr. Platt ruled the state; for nigh upon twenty years he ruled it. It was not the governor; it was not the legislature; it was Mr. Platt. And the capital was not here [in Albany]; it was at 49 Broadway; Mr. Platt and his lieutenants. It makes no difference what name you give, whether you call it Fenton or Conkling or Cornell or Arthur or Platt or by the names of men now living. The ruler of the state during the greater part of the forty years of my acquaintance with the state government has not been any man authorized by the constitution or by law.... The party leader is elected by no one, accountable to no one, bound by no oath of office, removable by no one."

The Nation Aroused.—With the spirit of criticism came also the spirit of reform. The charges were usually exaggerated; often wholly false; but there was enough truth in them to warrant renewed vigilance on the part of American democracy. President Roosevelt doubtless summed up the sentiment of the great majority of citizens when he demanded the punishment of wrong-doers in 1907, saying: "It makes not a particle of difference whether these crimes are committed by a capitalist or by a laborer, by a leading banker or manufacturer or railroad man or by a leading representative of a labor union. Swindling in stocks, corrupting legislatures, making fortunes by the inflation of securities, by wrecking railroads, by destroying competitors through rebates—these forms of wrong-doing in the capitalist are far more infamous than any ordinary form of embezzlement or forgery." The time had come, he added, to stop "muckraking" and proceed to the constructive work of removing the abuses that had grown up.

POLITICAL REFORMS

The Public Service.—It was a wise comprehension of the needs of American democracy that led the friends of reform to launch and to sustain for more than half a century a movement to improve the public service. On the one side they struck at the spoils system; at the right of the politicians to use public offices as mere rewards for partisan work. The federal civil service act of 1883 opened the way to reform by establishing five vital principles in law: (1) admission to office, not on the recommendation of party workers, but on the basis of competitive examinations; (2) promotion for meritorious service of the government rather than of parties; (3) no assessment of office holders for campaign funds; (4) permanent tenure during good behavior; and (5) no dismissals for political reasons. The act itself at first applied to only 14,000 federal offices, but under the constant pressure from the reformers it was extended until in 1916 it covered nearly 300,000 employees out of an executive force of approximately 414,000. While gaining steadily at Washington, civil service reformers carried their agitation into the states and cities. By 1920 they were able to report ten states with civil service commissions and the merit system well intrenched in more than three hundred municipalities.

In excluding spoilsmen from public office, the reformers were, in a sense, engaged in a negative work: that of "keeping the rascals out." But there was a second and larger phase to their movement, one constructive in character: that of getting skilled, loyal, and efficient servants into the places of responsibility. Everywhere on land and sea, in town and country, new burdens were laid upon public officers. They were called upon to supervise the ships sailing to and from our ports; to inspect the water and milk supplies of our cities; to construct and operate great public works, such as the Panama and Erie canals; to regulate the complicated rates of railway companies; to safeguard health and safety in a thousand ways; to climb the mountains to fight forest fires; and to descend into the deeps of the earth to combat the deadly coal gases that assail the miners. In a word, those who labored to master the secrets and the powers of nature were summoned to the aid of the government: chemists, engineers, architects, nurses, surgeons, foresters—the skilled in all the sciences, arts, and crafts.

Keeping rascals out was no task at all compared with the problem of finding competent people for all the technical offices. "Now," said the reformers, "we must make attractive careers in the government work for the best American talent; we must train those applying for admission and increase the skill of those already in positions of trust; we must see to it that those entering at the bottom have a chance to rise to the top; in short, we must work for a government as skilled and efficient as it is strong, one commanding all the wisdom and talent of America that public welfare requires."

The Australian Ballot.—A second line of attack on the political machines was made in connection with the ballot. In the early days elections were frequently held in the open air and the poll was taken by a show of hands or by the enrollment of the voters under names of their favorite candidates. When this ancient practice was abandoned in favor of the printed ballot, there was still no secrecy about elections. Each party prepared its own ballot, often of a distinctive color, containing the names of its candidates. On election day, these papers were handed out to the voters by party workers. Any one could tell from the color of the ballot dropped into the box, or from some mark on the outside of the folded ballot, just how each man voted. Those who bought votes were sure that their purchases were "delivered." Those who intimidated voters could know when their intimidation was effective. In this way the party ballot strengthened the party machine.

As a remedy for such abuses, reformers, learning from the experience of Australia, urged the adoption of the "Australian ballot." That ballot, though it appeared in many forms, had certain constant features. It was official, that is, furnished by the government, not by party workers; it contained the names of all candidates of all parties; it was given out only in the polling places; and it was marked in secret. The first state to introduce it was Massachusetts. The year was 1888. Before the end of the century it had been adopted by nearly all the states in the union. The salutary effect of the reform in reducing the amount of cheating and bribery in elections was beyond all question.

The Direct Primary.—In connection with the uprising against machine politics, came a call for the abolition of the old method of nominating candidates by conventions. These time-honored party assemblies, which had come down from the days of Andrew Jackson, were, it was said, merely conclaves of party workers, sustained by the spoils system, and dominated by an inner circle of bosses. The remedy offered in this case was again "more democracy," namely, the abolition of the party convention and the adoption of the direct primary. Candidates were no longer to be chosen by secret conferences. Any member of a party was to be allowed to run for any office, to present his name to his party by securing signatures to a petition, and to submit his candidacy to his fellow partisans at a direct primary—an election within the party. In this movement Governor La Follette of Wisconsin took the lead and his state was the first in the union to adopt the direct primary for state-wide purposes. The idea spread, rapidly in the West, more slowly in the East. The public, already angered against "the bosses," grasped eagerly at it. Governor Hughes in New York pressed it upon the unwilling legislature. State after state accepted it until by 1918 Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, and New Mexico were the only states that had not bowed to the storm. Still the results were disappointing and at that very time the pendulum was beginning to swing backward.

Popular Election of Federal Senators.—While the movement for direct primaries was still advancing everywhere, a demand for the popular election of Senators, usually associated with it, swept forward to victory. Under the original Constitution, it had been expressly provided that Senators should be chosen by the legislatures of the states. In practice this rule transferred the selection of Senators to secret caucuses of party members in the state legislatures. In connection with these caucuses there had been many scandals, some direct proofs of brazen bribery and corruption, and dark hints besides. The Senate was called by its detractors "a millionaires' club" and it was looked upon as the "citadel of conservatism." The prescription in this case was likewise "more democracy"—direct election of Senators by popular vote.

This reform was not a new idea. It had been proposed in Congress as early as 1826. President Johnson, an ardent advocate, made it the subject of a special message in 1868 Not long afterward it appeared in Congress. At last in 1893, the year after the great Populist upheaval, the House of Representatives by the requisite two-thirds vote incorporated it in an amendment to the federal Constitution. Again and again it passed the House; but the Senate itself was obdurate. Able Senators leveled their batteries against it. Mr. Hoar of Massachusetts declared that it would transfer the seat of power to the "great cities and masses of population"; that it would "overthrow the whole scheme of the Senate and in the end the whole scheme of the national Constitution as designed and established by the framers of the Constitution and the people who adopted it."

Failing in the Senate, advocates of popular election made a rear assault through the states. They induced state legislatures to enact laws requiring the nomination of candidates for the Senate by the direct primary, and then they bound the legislatures to abide by the popular choice. Nevada took the lead in 1899. Shortly afterward Oregon, by the use of the initiative and referendum, practically bound legislators to accept the popular nominee and the country witnessed the spectacle of a Republican legislature "electing" a Democrat to represent the state in the Senate at Washington. By 1910 three-fourths of the states had applied the direct primary in some form to the choice of Senators. Men selected by that method began to pour in upon the floors of Congress; finally in 1912 the two-thirds majority was secured for an amendment to the federal Constitution providing for the popular election of Senators. It was quickly ratified by the states. The following year it was proclaimed in effect.

The Initiative and Referendum.—As a corrective for the evils which had grown up in state legislatures there arose a demand for the introduction of a Swiss device known as the initiative and referendum. The initiative permits any one to draw up a proposed bill; and, on securing a certain number of signatures among the voters, to require the submission of the measure to the people at an election. If the bill thus initiated receives a sufficient majority, it becomes a law. The referendum allows citizens who disapprove any act passed by the legislature to get up a petition against it and thus bring about a reference of the measure to the voters at the polls for approval or rejection. These two practices constitute a form of "direct government."

These devices were prescribed "to restore the government to the people." The Populists favored them in their platform of 1896. Mr. Bryan, two years later, made them a part of his program, and in the same year South Dakota adopted them. In 1902 Oregon, after a strenuous campaign, added a direct legislation amendment to the state constitution. Within ten years all the Southwestern, Mountain, and Pacific states, except Texas and Wyoming, had followed this example. To the east of the Mississippi, however, direct legislation met a chilly reception. By 1920 only five states in this section had accepted it: Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, and Maryland, the last approving the referendum only.

The Recall.—Executive officers and judges, as well as legislatures, had come in for their share of criticism, and it was proposed that they should likewise be subjected to a closer scrutiny by the public. For this purpose there was advanced a scheme known as the recall—which permitted a certain percentage of the voters to compel any officer, at any time during his term, to go before the people at a new election. This feature of direct government, tried out first in the city of Los Angeles, was extended to state-wide uses in Oregon in 1908. It failed, however, to capture popular imagination to the same degree as the initiative and referendum. At the end of ten years' agitation, only ten states, mainly in the West, had adopted it for general purposes, and four of them did not apply it to the judges of the courts. Still it was extensively acclaimed in cities and incorporated into hundreds of municipal laws and charters.

As a general proposition, direct government in all its forms was bitterly opposed by men of a conservative cast of mind. It was denounced by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge as "nothing less than a complete revolution in the fabric of our government and in the fundamental principles upon which that government rests." In his opinion, it promised to break down the representative principle and "undermine and overthrow the bulwarks of ordered liberty and individual freedom." Mr. Taft shared Mr. Lodge's views and spoke of direct government with scorn. "Votes," he exclaimed, "are not bread ... referendums do not pay rent or furnish houses, recalls do not furnish clothes, initiatives do not supply employment or relieve inequalities of condition or of opportunity."

Commission Government for Cities.—In the restless searching out of evils, the management of cities early came under critical scrutiny. City government, Mr. Bryce had remarked, was the one conspicuous failure in America. This sharp thrust, though resented by some, was accepted as a warning by others. Many prescriptions were offered by doctors of the body politic. Chief among them was the idea of simplifying the city government so that the light of public scrutiny could shine through it. "Let us elect only a few men and make them clearly responsible for the city government!" was the new cry in municipal reform. So, many city councils were reduced in size; one of the two houses, which several cities had adopted in imitation of the federal government, was abolished; and in order that the mayor could be held to account, he was given the power to appoint all the chief officials. This made the mayor, in some cases, the only elective city official and gave the voters a "short ballot" containing only a few names—an idea which some proposed to apply also to the state government.

A further step in the concentration of authority was taken in Galveston, Texas, where the people, looking upon the ruin of their city wrought by the devastating storm of 1901, and confronted by the difficult problems of reconstruction, felt the necessity for a more businesslike management of city affairs and instituted a new form of local administration. They abolished the old scheme of mayor and council and vested all power in five commissioners, one of whom, without any special prerogatives, was assigned to the office of "mayor president." In 1908, the commission form of government, as it was soon characterized, was adopted by Des Moines, Iowa. The attention of all municipal reformers was drawn to it and it was hailed as the guarantee of a better day. By 1920, more than four hundred cities, including Memphis, Spokane, Birmingham, Newark, and Buffalo, had adopted it. Still the larger cities like New York and Chicago kept their boards of aldermen.

The City Manager Plan.—A few years' experience with commission government revealed certain patent defects. The division of the work among five men was frequently found to introduce dissensions and irresponsibility. Commissioners were often lacking in the technical ability required to manage such difficult matters as fire and police protection, public health, public works, and public utilities. Some one then proposed to carry over into city government an idea from the business world. In that sphere the stockholders of each corporation elect the directors and the directors, in turn, choose a business manager to conduct the affairs of the company. It was suggested that the city commissioners, instead of attempting to supervise the details of the city administration, should select a manager to do this. The scheme was put into effect in Sumter, South Carolina, in 1912. Like the commission plan, it became popular. Within eight years more than one hundred and fifty towns and cities had adopted it. Among the larger municipalities were Dayton, Springfield (Ohio), Akron, Kalamazoo, and Phoenix. It promised to create a new public service profession, that of city manager.

MEASURES OF ECONOMIC REFORM

The Spirit of American Reform.—The purification of the ballot, the restriction of the spoils system, the enlargement of direct popular control over the organs of government were not the sole answers made by the reformers to the critics of American institutions. Nor were they the most important. In fact, they were regarded not as ends in themselves, but as means to serve a wider purpose. That purpose was the promotion of the "general welfare." The concrete objects covered by that broad term were many and varied; but they included the prevention of extortion by railway and other corporations, the protection of public health, the extension of education, the improvement of living conditions in the cities, the elimination of undeserved poverty, the removal of gross inequalities in wealth, and more equality of opportunity.

All these things involved the use of the powers of government. Although a few clung to the ancient doctrine that the government should not interfere with private business at all, the American people at large rejected that theory as vigorously as they rejected the doctrines of an extreme socialism which exalts the state above the individual. Leaders representing every shade of opinion proclaimed the government an instrument of common welfare to be used in the public interest. "We must abandon definitely," said Roosevelt, "the laissez-faire theory of political economy and fearlessly champion a system of increased governmental control, paying no attention to the cries of worthy people who denounce this as socialistic." This view was shared by Mr. Taft, who observed: "Undoubtedly the government can wisely do much more ... to relieve the oppressed, to create greater equality of opportunity, to make reasonable terms for labor in employment, and to furnish vocational education." He was quick to add his caution that "there is a line beyond which the government cannot go with any good practical results in seeking to make men and society better."

The Regulation of Railways.—The first attempts to use the government in a large way to control private enterprise in the public interest were made by the Northwestern states in the decade between 1870 and 1880. Charges were advanced by the farmers, particularly those organized into Granges, that the railways extorted the highest possible rates for freight and passengers, that favoritism was shown to large shippers, that fraudulent stocks and bonds were sold to the innocent public. It was claimed that railways were not like other enterprises, but were "quasi-public" concerns, like the roads and ferries, and thus subject to government control. Accordingly laws were enacted bringing the railroads under state supervision. In some cases the state legislature fixed the maximum rates to be charged by common carriers, and in other cases commissions were created with the power to establish the rates after an investigation. This legislation was at first denounced in the East as nothing less than the "confiscation" of the railways in the interest of the farmers. Attempts to have the Supreme Court of the United States declare it unconstitutional were made without avail; still a principle was finally laid down to the effect that in fixing rates state legislatures and commissions must permit railway companies to earn a "fair" return on the capital invested.

In a few years the Granger spirit appeared in Congress. An investigation revealed a long list of abuses committed by the railways against shippers and travelers. The result was the interstate commerce act of 1887, which created the Interstate Commerce Commission, forbade discriminations in rates, and prohibited other objectionable practices on the part of railways. This measure was loosely enforced and the abuses against which it was directed continued almost unabated. A demand for stricter control grew louder and louder. Congress was forced to heed. In 1903 it enacted the Elkins law, forbidding railways to charge rates other than those published, and laid penalties upon the officers and agents of companies, who granted secret favors to shippers, and upon shippers who accepted them. Three years later a still more drastic step was taken by the passage of the Hepburn act. The Interstate Commerce Commission was authorized, upon complaint of some party aggrieved, and after a public hearing, to determine whether just and reasonable rates had been charged by the companies. In effect, the right to fix freight and passenger rates was taken out of the hands of the owners of the railways engaged in interstate commerce and vested in the hands of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Thus private property to the value of $20,000,000,000 or more was declared to be a matter of public concern and subject to government regulation in the common interest.

Municipal Utilities.—Similar problems arose in connection with the street railways, electric light plants, and other utilities in the great cities. In the beginning the right to construct such undertakings was freely, and often corruptly, granted to private companies by city councils. Distressing abuses arose in connection with such practices. Many grants or franchises were made perpetual, or perhaps for a term of 999 years. The rates charged and services rendered were left largely to the will of the companies holding the franchises. Mergers or unions of companies were common and the public was deluged with stocks and bonds of doubtful value; bankruptcies were frequent. The connection between the utility companies and the politicians was, to say the least, not always in the public interest.

American ingenuity was quick to devise methods for eliminating such evils. Three lines of progress were laid out by the reformers. One group proposed that such utilities should be subject to municipal or state regulation, that the formation of utility companies should be under public control, and that the issue of stocks and bonds must be approved by public authority. In some cases state, and in other cases municipal, commissions were created to exercise this great power over "quasi-public corporations." Wisconsin, by laws enacted in 1907, put all heat, light, water works, telephone, and street railway companies under the supervision of a single railway commission. Other states followed this example rapidly. By 1920 the principle of public control over municipal utilities was accepted in nearly every section of the union.

A second line of reform appeared in the "model franchise" for utility corporations. An illustration of this tendency was afforded by the Chicago street railway settlement of 1906. The total capital of the company was fixed at a definite sum, its earnings were agreed upon, and the city was given the right to buy and operate the system if it desired to do so. In many states, about the same time, it was provided that no franchises to utility companies could run more than twenty-five years.

A third group of reformers were satisfied with nothing short of municipal ownership. They proposed to drive private companies entirely out of the field and vest the ownership and management of municipal plants in the city itself. This idea was extensively applied to electric light and water works plants, but to street railways in only a few cities, including San Francisco and Seattle. In New York the subways are owned by the city but leased for operation.

Tenement House Control.—Among the other pressing problems of the cities was the overcrowding in houses unfit for habitation. An inquiry in New York City made under the authority of the state in 1902 revealed poverty, misery, slums, dirt, and disease almost beyond imagination. The immediate answer was the enactment of a tenement house law prescribing in great detail the size of the rooms, the air space, the light and the sanitary arrangement for all new buildings. An immense improvement followed and the idea was quickly taken up in other states having large industrial centers. In 1920 New York made a further invasion of the rights of landlords by assuring to the public "reasonable rents" for flats and apartments.

Workmen's Compensation.—No small part of the poverty in cities was due to the injury of wage-earners while at their trade. Every year the number of men and women killed or wounded in industry mounted higher. Under the old law, the workman or his family had to bear the loss unless the employer had been guilty of some extraordinary negligence. Even in that case an expensive lawsuit was usually necessary to recover "damages." In short, although employers insured their buildings and machinery against necessary risks from fire and storm, they allowed their employees to assume the heavy losses due to accidents. The injustice of this, though apparent enough now, was once not generally recognized. It was said to be unfair to make the employer pay for injuries for which he was not personally responsible; but the argument was overborne.



About 1910 there set in a decided movement in the direction of lifting the burden of accidents from the unfortunate victims. In the first place, laws were enacted requiring employers to pay damages in certain amounts according to the nature of the case, no matter how the accident occurred, as long as the injured person was not guilty of willful negligence. By 1914 more than one-half the states had such laws. In the second place, there developed schemes of industrial insurance in the form of automatic grants made by state commissions to persons injured in industries, the funds to be provided by the employers or the state or by both. By 1917 thirty-six states had legislation of this type.

Minimum Wages and Mothers' Pensions.—Another source of poverty, especially among women and children, was found to be the low wages paid for their labor. Report after report showed this. In 1912 Massachusetts took a significant step in the direction of declaring the minimum wages which might be paid to women and children. Oregon, the following year, created a commission with power to prescribe minimum wages in certain industries, based on the cost of living, and to enforce the rates fixed. Within a short time one-third of the states had legislation of this character. To cut away some of the evils of poverty and enable widows to keep their homes intact and bring up their children, a device known as mothers' pensions became popular during the second decade of the twentieth century. At the opening of 1913 two states, Colorado and Illinois, had laws authorizing the payment from public funds of definite sums to widows with children. Within four years, thirty-five states had similar legislation.

Taxation and Great Fortunes.—As a part of the campaign waged against poverty by reformers there came a demand for heavy taxes upon great fortunes, particularly taxes upon inheritances or estates passing to heirs on the decease of the owners. Roosevelt was an ardent champion of this type of taxation and dwelt upon it at length in his message to Congress in 1907. "Such a tax," he said, "would help to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity for the people of the generations growing to manhood.... Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: the fact that there are some respects in which men are obviously not equal; but also to insist that there should be equality of self-respect and of mutual respect, an equality of rights before the law, and at least an approximate equality in the conditions under which each man obtains the chance to show the stuff that is in him when compared with his fellows."

The spirit of the new age was, therefore, one of reform, not of revolution. It called for no evolutionary or utopian experiments, but for the steady and progressive enactment of measures aimed at admitted abuses and designed to accomplish tangible results in the name of public welfare.

General References

J. Bryce, The American Commonwealth.

R.C. Brooks, Corruption in American Life.

E.A. Ross, Changing America.

P.L. Haworth, America in Ferment.

E.R.A. Seligman, The Income Tax.

W.Z. Ripley, Railroads: Rates and Regulation.

E.S. Bradford, Commission Government in American Cities.

H.R. Seager, A Program of Social Reform.

C. Zueblin, American Municipal Progress.

W.E. Walling, Progressivism and After.

The American Year Book (an annual publication which contains reviews of reform legislation).

Research Topics

"The Muckrakers."—Paxson, The New Nation (Riverside Series), pp. 309-323.

Civil Service Reform.—Beard, American Government and Politics (3d ed.), pp. 222-230; Ogg, National Progress (American Nation Series), pp. 135-142.

Direct Government.—Beard, American Government, pp. 461-473; Ogg, pp. 160-166.

Popular Election of Senators.—Beard, American Government, pp. 241-244; Ogg, pp. 149-150.

Party Methods.—Beard, American Government, pp. 656-672.

Ballot Reform.—Beard, American Government, pp. 672-705.

Social and Economic Legislation.—Beard, American Government, pp. 721-752.

Questions

1. Who were some of the critics of abuses in American life?

2. What particular criticisms were advanced?

3. How did Elihu Root define "invisible government"?

4. Discuss the use of criticism as an aid to progress in a democracy.

5. Explain what is meant by the "merit system" in the civil service. Review the rise of the spoils system.

6. Why is the public service of increasing importance? Give some of its new problems.

7. Describe the Australian ballot and the abuses against which it is directed.

8. What are the elements of direct government? Sketch their progress in the United States.

9. Trace the history of popular election of Senators.

10. Explain the direct primary. Commission government. The city manager plan.

11. How does modern reform involve government action? On what theory is it justified?

12. Enumerate five lines of recent economic reform.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE NEW POLITICAL DEMOCRACY

Women in Public Affairs.—The social legislation enacted in response to the spirit of reform vitally affected women in the home and in industry and was promoted by their organizations. Where they did not lead, they were affiliated with movements for social improvement. No cause escaped their attention; no year passed without widening the range of their interests. They served on committees that inquired into the problems of the day; they appeared before legislative assemblies to advocate remedies for the evils they discovered. By 1912 they were a force to be reckoned with in national politics. In nine states complete and equal suffrage had been established, and a widespread campaign for a national suffrage amendment was in full swing. On every hand lay evidences that their sphere had been broadened to include public affairs. This was the culmination of forces that had long been operating.

A New Emphasis in History.—A movement so deeply affecting important interests could not fail to find a place in time in the written record of human progress. History often began as a chronicle of kings and queens, knights and ladies, written partly to amuse and partly to instruct the classes that appeared in its pages. With the growth of commerce, parliaments, and international relations, politics and diplomacy were added to such chronicles of royal and princely doings. After the rise of democracy, industry, and organized labor, the transactions of everyday life were deemed worthy of a place in the pages of history. In each case history was rewritten and the past rediscovered in the light of the new age. So it will be with the rise and growth of women's political power. The history of their labor, their education, their status in society, their influence on the course of events will be explored and given its place in the general record.

It will be a history of change. The superior position which women enjoy in America to-day is the result of a slow evolution from an almost rightless condition in colonial times. The founders of America brought with them the English common law. Under that law, a married woman's personal property—jewels, money, furniture, and the like—became her husband's property; the management of her lands passed into his control. Even the wages she earned, if she worked for some one else, belonged to him. Custom, if not law, prescribed that women should not take part in town meetings or enter into public discussions of religious questions. Indeed it is a far cry from the banishment of Anne Hutchinson from Massachusetts in 1637, for daring to dispute with the church fathers, to the political conventions of 1920 in which women sat as delegates, made nominating speeches, and served on committees. In the contrast between these two scenes may be measured the change in the privileges of women since the landing of the Pilgrims. The account of this progress is a narrative of individual effort on the part of women, of organizations among them, of generous aid from sympathetic men in the long agitation for the removal of civil and political disabilities. It is in part also a narrative of irresistible economic change which drew women into industry, created a leisure class, gave women wages and incomes, and therewith economic independence.

THE RISE OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT

Protests of Colonial Women.—The republican spirit which produced American independence was of slow and steady growth. It did not spring up full-armed in a single night. It was, on the contrary, nourished during a long period of time by fireside discussions as well as by debates in the public forum. Women shared that fireside sifting of political principles and passed on the findings of that scrutiny in letters to their friends, newspaper articles, and every form of written word. How widespread was this potent, though not spectacular force, is revealed in the collections of women's letters, articles, songs, dramas, and satirical "skits" on English rule that have come down to us. In this search into the reasons of government, some women began to take thought about laws that excluded them from the ballot. Two women at least left their protests on record. Abigail, the ingenious and witty wife of John Adams, wrote to her husband, in March, 1776, that women objected "to all arbitrary power whether of state or males" and demanded political privileges in the new order then being created. Hannah Lee Corbin, the sister of "Lighthorse" Harry Lee, protested to her brother against the taxation of women without representation.



The Stir among European Women.—Ferment in America, in the case of women as of men, was quickened by events in Europe. In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft published in England the Vindication of the Rights of Women—a book that was destined to serve the cause of liberty among women as the writings of Locke and Paine had served that of men. The specific grievances which stirred English women were men's invasion of women's industries, such as spinning and weaving; the denial of equal educational opportunities; and political disabilities. In France also the great Revolution raised questionings about the status of women. The rights of "citizenesses" as well as the rights of "citizens" were examined by the boldest thinkers. This in turn reacted upon women in the United States.

Leadership in America.—The origins of the American woman movement are to be found in the writings of a few early intellectual leaders. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, books, articles, and pamphlets about women came in increasing numbers from the press. Lydia Maria Child wrote a history of women; Margaret Fuller made a critical examination of the status of women in her time; and Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet supplemented the older histories by showing what an important part women had played in the American Revolution.

The Struggle for Education.—Along with criticism, there was carried on a constructive struggle for better educational facilities for women who had been from the beginning excluded from every college in the country. In this long battle, Emma Willard and Mary Lyon led the way; the former founded a seminary at Troy, New York; and the latter made the beginnings of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Oberlin College in Ohio, established in 1833, opened its doors to girls and from it were graduated young students to lead in the woman movement. Sarah J. Hale, who in 1827 became the editor of a "Ladies' Magazine," published in Boston, conducted a campaign for equal educational opportunities which helped to bear fruit in the founding of Vassar College shortly after the Civil War.

The Desire to Effect Reforms.—As they came to study their own history and their own part in civilization, women naturally became deeply interested in all the controversies going on around them. The temperance question made a special appeal to them and they organized to demand the right to be heard on it. In 1846 the "Daughters of Temperance" formed a secret society favoring prohibition. They dared to criticize the churches for their indifference and were so bold as to ask that drunkenness be made a ground for divorce.

The slavery issue even more than temperance called women into public life. The Grimke sisters of South Carolina emancipated their bondmen, and one of these sisters, exiled from Charleston for her "Appeal to the Christian Women of the South," went North to work against the slavery system. In 1837 the National Women's Anti-Slavery Convention met in New York; seventy-one women delegates represented eight states. Three years later eight American women, five of them in Quaker costume, attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, much to the horror of the men, who promptly excluded them from the sessions on the ground that it was not fitting for women to take part in such meetings.

In other spheres of activity, especially social service, women steadily enlarged their interest. Nothing human did they consider alien to them. They inveighed against cruel criminal laws and unsanitary prisons. They organized poor relief and led in private philanthropy. Dorothea Dix directed the movement that induced the New York legislature to establish in 1845 a separate asylum for the criminal insane. In the same year Sarah G. Bagley organized the Lowell Female Reform Association for the purpose of reducing the long hours of labor for women, safeguarding "the constitutions of future generations." Mrs. Eliza Woodson Farnham, matron in Sing Sing penitentiary, was known throughout the nation for her social work, especially prison reform. Wherever there were misery and suffering, women were preparing programs of relief.

Freedom of Speech for Women.—In the advancement of their causes, of whatever kind, women of necessity had to make public appeals and take part in open meetings. Here they encountered difficulties. The appearance of women on the platform was new and strange. Naturally it was widely resented. Antoinette Brown, although she had credentials as a delegate, was driven off the platform of a temperance convention in New York City simply because she was a woman. James Russell Lowell, editor of the "Atlantic Monthly," declined a poem from Julia Ward Howe on the theory that no woman could write a poem; but he added on second thought that he might consider an article in prose. Nathaniel Hawthorne, another editor, even objected to something in prose because to him "all ink-stained women were equally detestable." To the natural resentment against their intrusion into new fields was added that aroused by their ideas and methods. As temperance reformers, they criticized in a caustic manner those who would not accept their opinions. As opponents of slavery they were especially bitter. One of their conventions, held at Philadelphia in 1833, passed a resolution calling on all women to leave those churches that would not condemn every form of human bondage. This stirred against them many of the clergy who, accustomed to having women sit silent during services, were in no mood to treat such a revolt leniently. Then came the last straw. Women decided that they would preach—out of the pulpit first, and finally in it.

Women in Industry.—The period of this ferment was also the age of the industrial revolution in America, the rise of the factory system, and the growth of mill towns. The labor of women was transferred from the homes to the factories. Then arose many questions: the hours of labor, the sanitary conditions of the mills, the pressure of foreign immigration on native labor, the wages of women as compared with those of men, and the right of married women to their own earnings. Labor organizations sprang up among working women. The mill girls of Lowell, Massachusetts, mainly the daughters of New England farmers, published a magazine, "The Lowell Offering." So excellent were their writings that the French statesman, Thiers, carried a copy of their paper into the Chamber of Deputies to show what working women could achieve in a republic. As women were now admittedly earning their own way in the world by their own labor, they began to talk of their "economic independence."

The World Shaken by Revolution.—Such was the quickening of women's minds in 1848 when the world was startled once more by a revolution in France which spread to Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary, and Italy. Once more the people of the earth began to explore the principles of democracy and expound human rights. Women, now better educated and more "advanced" in their ideas, played a role of still greater importance in that revolution. They led in agitations and uprisings. They suffered from reaction and persecution. From their prison in France, two of them who had been jailed for too much insistence on women's rights exchanged greetings with American women who were raising the same issue here. By this time the women had more supporters among the men. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, though he afterwards recanted, used his powerful pen in their behalf. Anti-slavery leaders welcomed their aid and repaid them by urging the enfranchisement of women.

The Woman's Rights Convention of 1848.—The forces, moral and intellectual, which had been stirring among women, crystallized a few months after the outbreak of the European revolution in the first Woman's Rights Convention in the history of America. It met at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, on the call of Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Mary Ann McClintock, three of them Quakers. Accustomed to take part in church meetings with men, the Quakers naturally suggested that men as well as women be invited to attend the convention. Indeed, a man presided over the conference, for that position seemed too presumptuous even for such stout advocates of woman's rights.

The deliberations of the Seneca Falls convention resulted in a Declaration of Rights modeled after the Declaration of Independence. For example, the preamble began: "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied...." So also it closed: "Such has been the patient suffering of women under this government and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled." Then followed the list of grievances, the same number which had been exhibited to George III in 1776. Especially did they assail the disabilities imposed upon them by the English common law imported into America—the law which denied married women their property, their wages, and their legal existence as separate persons. All these grievances they recited to "a candid world." The remedies for the evils which they endured were then set forth in detail. They demanded "equal rights" in the colleges, trades, and professions; equal suffrage; the right to share in all political offices, honors, and emoluments; the right to complete equality in marriage, including equal guardianship of the children; and for married women the right to own property, to keep wages, to make contracts, to transact business, and to testify in the courts of justice. In short, they declared women to be persons as men are persons and entitled to all the rights and privileges of human beings. Such was the clarion call which went forth to the world in 1848—to an amused and contemptuous world, it must be admitted—but to a world fated to heed and obey.

The First Gains in Civil Liberty.—The convention of 1848 did not make political enfranchisement the leading issue. Rather did it emphasize the civil disabilities of women which were most seriously under discussion at the time. Indeed, the New York legislature of that very year, as the result of a twelve years' agitation, passed the Married Woman's Property Act setting aside the general principles of the English common law as applied to women and giving them many of the "rights of man." California and Wisconsin followed in 1850; Massachusetts in 1854; and Kansas in 1859. Other states soon fell into line. Women's earnings and inheritances were at last their own in some states at least. In a little while laws were passed granting women rights as equal guardians of their children and permitting them to divorce their husbands on the grounds of cruelty and drunkenness.

By degrees other steps were taken. The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania was founded in 1850, and the Philadelphia School of Design for Women three years later. In 1852 the American Women's Educational Association was formed to initiate an agitation for enlarged educational opportunities for women. Other colleges soon emulated the example of Oberlin: the University of Utah in 1850; Hillsdale College in Michigan in 1855; Baker University in Kansas in 1858; and the University of Iowa in 1860. New trades and professions were opened to women and old prejudices against their activities and demands slowly gave way.

THE NATIONAL STRUGGLE FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE

The Beginnings of Organization.—As women surmounted one obstacle after another, the agitation for equal suffrage came to the front. If any year is to be fixed as the date of its beginning, it may very well be 1850, when the suffragists of Ohio urged the state constitutional convention to confer the vote upon them. With apparent spontaneity there were held in the same year state suffrage conferences in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts; and connections were formed among the leaders of these meetings. At the same time the first national suffrage convention was held in Worcester, Massachusetts, on the call of eighty-nine leading men and women representing six states. Accounts of the convention were widely circulated in this country and abroad. English women,—for instance, Harriet Martineau,—sent words of appreciation for the work thus inaugurated. It inspired a leading article in the "Westminster Review," which deeply interested the distinguished economist, John Stuart Mill. Soon he was the champion of woman suffrage in the British Parliament and the author of a powerful tract The Subjection of Women, widely read throughout the English-speaking world. Thus do world movements grow. Strange to relate the women of England were enfranchised before the adoption of the federal suffrage amendment in America.

The national suffrage convention of 1850 was followed by an extraordinary outburst of agitation. Pamphlets streamed from the press. Petitions to legislative bodies were drafted, signed, and presented. There were addresses by favorite orators like Garrison, Phillips, and Curtis, and lectures and poems by men like Emerson, Longfellow, and Whittier. In 1853 the first suffrage paper was founded by the wife of a member of Congress from Rhode Island. By this time the last barrier to white manhood suffrage in the North had been swept away and the woman's movement was gaining momentum every year.

The Suffrage Movement Checked by the Civil War.—Advocates of woman suffrage believed themselves on the high road to success when the Civil War engaged the energies and labors of the nation. Northern women became absorbed in the struggle to preserve the union. They held no suffrage conventions for five years. They transformed their associations into Loyalty Leagues. They banded together to buy only domestic goods when foreign imports threatened to ruin American markets. They rolled up monster petitions in favor of the emancipation of slaves. In hospitals, in military prisons, in agriculture, and in industry they bore their full share of responsibility. Even when the New York legislature took advantage of their unguarded moments and repealed the law giving the mother equal rights with the father in the guardianship of children, they refused to lay aside war work for agitation. As in all other wars, their devotion was unstinted and their sacrifices equal to the necessities of the hour.

The Federal Suffrage Amendment.—Their plans and activities, when the war closed, were shaped by events beyond their control. The emancipation of the slaves and their proposed enfranchisement made prominent the question of a national suffrage for the first time in our history. Friends of the colored man insisted that his civil liberties would not be safe unless he was granted the right to vote. The woman suffragists very pertinently asked why the same principle did not apply to women. The answer which they received was negative. The fourteenth amendment to the federal Constitution, adopted in 1868, definitely put women aside by limiting the scope of its application, so far as the suffrage was concerned, to the male sex. In making manhood suffrage national, however, it nationalized the issue.

This was the signal for the advocates of woman suffrage. In March, 1869, their proposed amendment was introduced in Congress by George W. Julian of Indiana. It provided that no citizen should be deprived of the vote on account of sex, following the language of the fifteenth amendment which forbade disfranchisement on account of race. Support for the amendment, coming from many directions, led the suffragists to believe that their case was hopeful. In their platform of 1872, for example, the Republicans praised the women for their loyal devotion to freedom, welcomed them to spheres of wider usefulness, and declared that the demand of any class of citizens for additional rights deserved "respectful consideration."



Experience soon demonstrated, however, that praise was not the ballot. Indeed the suffragists already had realized that a tedious contest lay before them. They had revived in 1866 their regular national convention. They gave the name of "The Revolution" to their paper, edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. They formed a national suffrage association and organized annual pilgrimages to Congress to present their claims. Such activities bore some results. Many eminent congressmen were converted to their cause and presented it ably to their colleagues of both chambers. Still the subject was ridiculed by the newspapers and looked upon as freakish by the masses.

The State Campaigns.—Discouraged by the outcome of the national campaign, suffragists turned to the voters of the individual states and sought the ballot at their hands. Gains by this process were painfully slow. Wyoming, it is true, while still a territory, granted suffrage to women in 1869 and continued it on becoming a state twenty years later, in spite of strong protests in Congress. In 1893 Colorado established complete political equality. In Utah, the third suffrage state, the cause suffered many vicissitudes. Women were enfranchised by the territorial legislature; they were deprived of the ballot by Congress in 1887; finally in 1896 on the admission of Utah to the union they recovered their former rights. During the same year, 1896, Idaho conferred equal suffrage upon the women. This was the last suffrage victory for more than a decade.

The Suffrage Cause in Congress.—In the midst of the meager gains among the states there were occasional flurries of hope for immediate action on the federal amendment. Between 1878 and 1896 the Senate committee reported the suffrage resolution by a favorable majority on five different occasions. During the same period, however, there were nine unfavorable reports and only once did the subject reach the point of a general debate. At no time could anything like the required two-thirds vote be obtained.

The Changing Status of Women.—While the suffrage movement was lagging, the activities of women in other directions were steadily multiplying. College after college—Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Smith, Wellesley, to mention a few—was founded to give them the advantages of higher education. Other institutions, especially the state universities of the West, opened their doors to women, and women were received into the professions of law and medicine. By the rapid growth of public high schools in which girls enjoyed the same rights as boys, education was extended still more widely. The number of women teachers increased by leaps and bounds.

Meanwhile women were entering nearly every branch of industry and business. How many of them worked at gainful occupations before 1870 we do not know; but from that year forward we have the records of the census. Between 1870 and 1900 the proportion of women in the professions rose from less than two per cent to more than ten per cent; in trade and transportation from 24.8 per cent to 43.2 per cent; and in manufacturing from 13 to 19 per cent. In 1910, there were over 8,000,000 women gainfully employed as compared with 30,000,000 men. When, during the war on Germany, the government established the principle of equal pay for equal work and gave official recognition to the value of their services in industry, it was discovered how far women had traveled along the road forecast by the leaders of 1848.

The Club Movement among Women.—All over the country women's societies and clubs were started to advance this or that reform or merely to study literature, art, and science. In time these women's organizations of all kinds were federated into city, state, and national associations and drawn into the consideration of public questions. Under the leadership of Frances Willard they made temperance reform a vital issue. They took an interest in legislation pertaining to prisons, pure food, public health, and municipal government, among other things. At their sessions and conferences local, state, and national issues were discussed until finally, it seems, everything led to the quest of the franchise. By solemn resolution in 1914 the National Federation of Women's Clubs, representing nearly two million club women, formally endorsed woman suffrage. In the same year the National Education Association, speaking for the public school teachers of the land, added its seal of approval.

State and National Action.—Again the suffrage movement was in full swing in the states. Washington in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona in 1912, Nevada and Montana in 1914 by popular vote enfranchised their women. Illinois in 1913 conferred upon them the right to vote for President of the United States. The time had arrived for a new movement. A number of younger suffragists sought to use the votes of women in the equal suffrage states to compel one or both of the national political parties to endorse and carry through Congress the federal suffrage amendment. Pressure then came upon Congress from every direction: from the suffragists who made a straight appeal on the grounds of justice; and from the suffragists who besought the women of the West to vote against candidates for President, who would not approve the federal amendment. In 1916, for the first time, a leading presidential candidate, Mr. Charles E. Hughes, speaking for the Republicans, endorsed the federal amendment and a distinguished ex-President, Roosevelt, exerted a powerful influence to keep it an issue in the campaign.



National Enfranchisement.—After that, events moved rapidly. The great state of New York adopted equal suffrage in 1917. Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Michigan swung into line the following year; several other states, by legislative action, gave women the right to vote for President. In the meantime the suffrage battle at Washington grew intense. Appeals and petitions poured in upon Congress and the President. Militant suffragists held daily demonstrations in Washington. On September 30, 1918, President Wilson, who, two years before, had opposed federal action and endorsed suffrage by state adoption only, went before Congress and urged the passage of the suffrage amendment to the Constitution. In June, 1919, the requisite two-thirds vote was secured; the resolution was carried and transmitted to the states for ratification. On August 28, 1920, the thirty-sixth state, Tennessee, approved the amendment, making three-fourths of the states as required by the Constitution. Thus woman suffrage became the law of the land. A new political democracy had been created. The age of agitation was closed and the epoch of responsible citizenship opened.

General References

Edith Abbott, Women in Industry.

C.P. Gilman, Woman and Economics.

I.H. Harper, Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony.

E.R. Hecker, Short History of Woman's Rights.

S.B. Anthony and I.H. Harper, History of Woman Suffrage (4 vols.).

J.W. Taylor, Before Vassar Opened.

A.H. Shaw, The Story of a Pioneer.

Research Topics

The Rise of the Woman Suffrage Movement.—McMaster, History of the People of the United States, Vol. VIII, pp. 116-121; K. Porter, History of Suffrage in the United States, pp. 135-145.

The Development of the Suffrage Movement.—Porter, pp. 228-254; Ogg, National Progress (American Nation Series), pp. 151-156 and p. 382.

Women's Labor in the Colonial Period.—E. Abbott, Women in Industry, pp. 10-34.

Women and the Factory System.—Abbott, pp. 35-62.

Early Occupations for Women.—Abbott, pp. 63-85.

Women's Wages.—Abbott, pp. 262-316.

Questions

1. Why were women involved in the reform movements of the new century?

2. What is history? What determines the topics that appear in written history?

3. State the position of women under the old common law.

4. What part did women play in the intellectual movement that preceded the American Revolution?

5. Explain the rise of the discussion of women's rights.

6. What were some of the early writings about women?

7. Why was there a struggle for educational opportunities?

8. How did reform movements draw women into public affairs and what were the chief results?

9. Show how the rise of the factory affected the life and labor of women.

10. Why is the year 1848 an important year in the woman movement? Discuss the work of the Seneca Falls convention.

11. Enumerate some of the early gains in civil liberty for women.

12. Trace the rise of the suffrage movement. Show the effect of the Civil War.

13. Review the history of the federal suffrage amendment.

14. Summarize the history of the suffrage in the states.



CHAPTER XXIV

INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY

The New Economic Age.—The spirit of criticism and the measures of reform designed to meet it, which characterized the opening years of the twentieth century, were merely the signs of a new age. The nation had definitely passed into industrialism. The number of city dwellers employed for wages as contrasted with the farmers working on their own land was steadily mounting. The free land, once the refuge of restless workingmen of the East and the immigrants from Europe, was a thing of the past. As President Roosevelt later said in speaking of the great coal strike, "a few generations ago, the American workman could have saved money, gone West, and taken up a homestead. Now the free lands were gone. In earlier days, a man who began with a pick and shovel might come to own a mine. That outlet was now closed as regards the immense majority.... The majority of men who earned wages in the coal industry, if they wished to progress at all, were compelled to progress not by ceasing to be wage-earners but by improving the conditions under which all the wage-earners of the country lived and worked."

The disappearance of the free land, President Roosevelt went on to say, also produced "a crass inequality in the bargaining relation of the employer and the individual employee standing alone. The great coal-mining and coal-carrying companies which employed their tens of thousands could easily dispense with the services of any particular miner. The miner, on the other hand, however expert, could not dispense with the companies. He needed a job; his wife and children would starve if he did not get one.... Individually the miners were impotent when they sought to enter a wage contract with the great companies; they could make fair terms only by uniting into trade unions to bargain collectively." It was of this state of affairs that President Taft spoke when he favored the modification of the common law "so as to put employees of little power and means on a level with their employers in adjusting and agreeing upon their mutual obligations."

John D. Rockefeller, Jr., on the side of the great captains of industry, recognized the same facts. He said: "In the early days of the development of industry, the employer and capital investor were frequently one. Daily contact was had between him and his employees, who were his friends and neighbors.... Because of the proportions which modern industry has attained, employers and employees are too often strangers to each other.... Personal relations can be revived only through adequate representation of the employees. Representation is a principle which is fundamentally just and vital to the successful conduct of industry.... It is not consistent for us as Americans to demand democracy in government and practice autocracy in industry.... With the developments what they are in industry to-day, there is sure to come a progressive evolution from aristocratic single control, whether by capital, labor, or the state, to democratic, cooeperative control by all three."