Study Guide 21
FTC / Federal Trade Commission
(1914): made to regulate business practices. Was made to help businesses, large and small to regulate themselves in ways that contributed to national well-being.
Keating-Owen Act (1916)
: Outlawed child labor
Social Gospel
A number of Americans found religion more convincing than social Darwinism in justifying the wealth of successful industrialists and bankers. Because he diligently applied the Protestant work ethnic (that hard work and material success are signs of God's favor) to both his business and personal life, John D. Rockefeller concluded "God gave me my riches". In a popular lecture, "Acres of diamonds", the reverend Russell Conwell preached that everyone had a duty to become rich. Andrew Carnegie's article "Wealth" argued that the wealthy had a God-given responsibility to carry out projects of civic philanthropy for the benefit of society. Practicing what he preached, Carnegie distributed over $350 million of his fortune to support the building of libraries, universities, and various public institutions.
Federal Reserve Act / Federal Reserve System
Act that brought private banks and public authority together to regulate and strengthen the nation's financial system.
Coal Miners' Strike of 1902
Coal miners wanted to gain a 10-20% wage increase, and an 8 hour work day as well as recognition from their union. They went on strike, and the president called them in along with the mine owners. The owners were expecting Roosevelt to threaten the miners, but he threatened the owners. His forcing the workers and owners to negotiate was called a 'square deal'.
Jane Addams / Hull House
Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr established the nation's first settlement house in Chicago in 1889. The two women had been inspired by a visit the year before to London's Toynbee Hall, where a group of middle class men had been living and working with that city's poor since 1884. Addams and Starr bought a decaying mansion once owned by a prominent Chicagoan, Charles J. Hull, and now surrounded by factories, churches, saloons, and tenements. Addams quickly emerged as the guiding spirit of Hull House. She moved into the building and demanded that all workers there do the same. She and Starr enlisted extraordinary women such as Florence Kelley, Alice Hamilton, and Julia Lathrop. They set up a nursery for the children of working mothers, a penny savings bank, and an employment bureau, soon followed by a baby clinic, a neighborhood playground, and social clubs. Determined to minister a cultural as well as economic needs, Hull House sponsored an orchestra, reading groups, and a lecture series. Members of Chicago's widening circle of reform-minded intellectuals, artists, and politicians contributed their energies to the enterprise. In 1893 Illinois Governor John P. Alleged named Hull House's Florence Kelley as the state's chief factory inspector. Kelley's investigations led to Illinois's first factory law, which prohibited child labor, limited the employment of women to eight hours a day, and authorized the state to hire inspectors to enforce the law. She respected the cultural inheritance of the immigrant poor and admired their resourcefulness. Although she wanted them to become Americans, she encouraged them to enrich America with their "immigrant gifts". Her approach was more liberal than that of many other reformers who wanted to strip them of their culture. She disapproved of the new working class entertainments that gave adolescents opportunities for intimate association. She was also troubled by the emergence of the "new women" and her frank sexuality. Addams tended to equate female sexuality with prostitution.
18th Amendment (ratified 1919):
Prohibition; forbade the sale and manufacture of intoxicating liquors
Ballinger-Pinchot controversy
Richard A. Ballinger, secretary of the inferior, had aroused progressives' suspicions by reopening for private commercial use 1 million acres of land that the Roosevelt administration had previously brought under federal protection. Then, Gifford Pinchot, still head of the National Forest Service, obtained information implicating Ballinger in the sale of Alaskan coal deposits. Pinchot showed the information, including an allegation that Ballinger had personally profited from the sale, to Taft. Taft defended Ballinger. Pinchot went public with his charges and a congressional investigation ensued. Whatever hope Taft may have had of escaping political damage disappeared when Roosevelt, returning from an African hunting trip by way of Europe in the spring of 1910, staged a public rendezvous with Pinchot in England. In signaling his support for his old friend Pinchot, Roosevelt was expressing displeasure with Taft.
"New Nationalism":
Roosevelt's reform program between 1910 and 1912, which called for establishing a strong federal government to regulate corporations, stabilize the economy, protect the weak, and restore social harmony.
William Howard Taft
Roosevelt's successor as president (1900-1913) who tried and failed to mediate between reformers and conservatives in the Republican Party
Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914
The act prohibited exclusive sales contracts, local price cutting to freeze out competitors, rebates, interlocking directorates in corporations capitalized at $1 million or more in the same field of business, and intercorporate stock holdings. Labor unions and agricultural cooperatives were excluded from the forbidden combinations in the restraint of trade. The act restricted the use of the injunction against labor, and it legalized peaceful strikes, picketing, and boycotts
"New Freedom":
Wilson's reform program of 1912 that called for temporarily concentrating government power so as to dismantle the trusts and return America to the 19th century conditions of competitive capitalism.
19th Amendment (ratified 1920):
Women suffrage
Payne-Aldrich Tariff
began in the United States House of Representatives as a bill lowering certain tariffs on goods entering the United States. President William Howard Taft called Congress into a special session in 1909 shortly after his inauguration to discuss the issue. Thus, the House of Representatives immediately passed a tariff bill sponsored by Payne, calling for reduced tariffs. However, the United States Senate speedily substituted a bill written by Aldrich, calling for fewer reductions and more increases in tariffs.
Meat Inspection Act (1906)
committed the government to monitoring the quality and safety of meat being sold to American customers.
Theodore Roosevelt
developed an uncommon affection for "the people". A believer in the superiority of his "English speaking" race, he nevertheless appointment members of inferior races to important posts in his administration.
17th Amendment (ratified 1913):
direct election of senators by popular vote
Square Deal
embraced the three Cs: control of the corporations, consumer protection, and the conservation of the United States' natural resources.
Settlement houses
established by the middle class reformers, settlement houses were intended to help poor immigrant workers cope with the harsh conditions of city living. Much of the inspiration for them came from young, college-trained, Protestant women from affluent backgrounds who rebelled against being relegated solely to the roles of wife and mother. For them, the settlement houses provided a way to assert their independence and apply their talents in socially useful ways.
NAACP / Niagara Movement
formation of this group marked the beginning of the modern civil rights movements (1909). The organization launched a magazine, the Crisis, edited by Du Bois, to publicize and protest lynching, riots, and other abuses directed against blacks. Their tactics are through the legal system, in which they will slowly try to diminish Jim Crow Laws.
Robert "Fighting Bob" LaFollette
he secured Wisconsin both a direct primary and a tax law that stripped the railroad corporations of tax exemptions they had long enjoyed. In 1905, he pushed through a civil service law mandating that every state employee had to meet a certain level of competence. A tireless campaigner and vigorous, "Fighting Bob" won election to the US Senate in 1906. Meanwhile, the growing strength of Wisconsin's labor and socialist movements persuaded progressive reformers to focus their legislative efforts on issues of corporate greed and social welfare. By 1910 reformers had passed state laws that regulated railroad and utility rates, instituted the nation's first state income tax, and provided workers with compensation for injuries, limitations on work hours, restrictions on child labor, and minimum wages for women.
Clubwomen
hundreds of hundreds of women belonged to local women's clubs. Conceived as self-help organizations in which women would be encouraged to sharpen their minds, refine their domestic skills, and strengthen their moral faculties, these clubs embraced social reforms. Clubwomen typically focused their energies on improving schools, building libraries and playgrounds, expanding educational and vocational opportunities for girls, and securing fire and sanitation codes for tenement houses. In so doing, they transformed traditional female concerns about children and families into questions of public policy about education, safety, and hygiene.
"trust-buster
in 1902 Roosevelt ordered the Justice Department to prosecute the Northern Securities Company, a $400 million monopoly that had been set up by financiers and railroad typhoons to control the railroads between Chicago and Washington state. In 1903 a federal court ordered Northern Securities dissolved, and the US Supreme Court upheld the decision the next year. Roosevelt was hailed as the nation's "trust buster". But Roosevelt did not want to break up all, or even most, large corporations. Industrial concentration, he believed, brought the United States wealth, productivity, and a rising standard of living. The role of government should be to regulate these industrial giants, to punish those that used their power improperly, and to protect citizens who were at a disadvantage in their dealings with industry, this new role would require the federal government to expand its powers. The strengthening of the federal government-not a return to small-scale industry- was the true aim of Roosevelt's antitrust campaign.
Northern Securities case (1902-1904):
in 1902 Roosevelt ordered the Justice Department to prosecute the Northern Securities Company, a $400 million monopoly that had been set up by financiers and railroad typhoons to control the railroads between Chicago and Washington state. In 1903 a federal court ordered Northern Securities dissolved, and the US Supreme Court upheld the decision the next year. Roosevelt was hailed as the nation's "trust buster". But Roosevelt did not want to break up all, or even most, large corporations. Industrial concentration, he believed, brought the United States wealth, productivity, and a rising standard of living. The role of government should be to regulate these industrial giants, to punish those that used their power improperly, and to protect citizens who were at a disadvantage in their dealings with industry, this new role would require the federal government to expand its powers. The strengthening of the federal government-not a return to small-scale industry- was the true aim of Roosevelt's antitrust campaign.
16th Amendment (ratified 1913
income tax is established
National Park Service
instituted a system of competitive bidding for the right to harvest timber on national forest grounds. Pinchot and his expanding staff of college educated foresters also exacted user fees from ranchers who had previously used nation forest grazing lands for free. Armed with new legislation and bureaucratic authority, they declared vast stretches of land in the West off limits to mining and dam construction.
"Bully pulpit"
meaning the position of the presidency gave the president a lot more power that wasn't specifically there in the Constitution.
preservation / conservation
movement that called for managing the environment to ensure the careful and efficient use of nation's natural resources.
Muckrakers
of the many groups of reformers that arose, one of particular importance, especially in the early years: investigative journalists, who were called muckrakers. Muckrakers were investigative journalists who propelled progressivism by exposing corruption, economic monopoly, and moral decay in American society.
Australian ballot
often called a secret ballot. This reform required voters to vote in private rather than in public. It also required the government, rather than political parties, to print the ballots and supervise the voting. It anticipated the progressives' determination to use government power to encourage citizens to cast their votes responsibly and wisely.
Pure Food and Drug Act (1906):
protected the public from fraudulently marketed foods and medications.
Underwood-Simmons Tariff (1913):
reduced tariff barriers from approximately 40 percent to 25 percent. To make up for revenue lost to tariff reduction, Congress then passed the first income tax. It required the wealthy to pay taxes on a greater percentage of their income than the poor.
Hepburn Act
significantly increased the ICC's powers of rate review and enforcement.
IWW (International Workers of the World):
socialists came in several varieties: German working class immigrants and their descendants in Milwaukee and other Midwest cities; Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe in New York and other Eastern Seaboard cities; disgruntled farmers and former Populists in the Southwest; and miners, timber cutters, and others laboring in isolated areas in the West who joined this group.
Progressive Party / "Bull Moose" Party
the Progressive Party was a political party formed by Therefore Roosevelt in 1912 when the Republicans refused to nominate him for president. The party adopted a sweeping reform program. Bull Moosers were the followers of Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election.
City Commissions / City Managers
the city commission shifted municipal power from the mayor and his aldermen to five city commissioners, each responsible for a different department of the city government. The impetus for this reform came from civic-minded businessmen determined to rebuild the government on the principles of efficient and scientific management that had energized the private sector. The results were often impressive. The Galveston commissioners restored the city's credit, improved its harbor, and built a massive seawall, all on a budget only two thirds the size of what it had been before. Commissioners rewarded supporters with jobs and contracts and sought undue power and prestige for their respective departments. The city manager plan was meant to overcome such problems. Under this plan, the commissioners continued to set policy, but the implementation of policy now restored with a "chief executive". This official, who was appointed by the commissioners, was to be insulated from the pressures of running for office. The city manager would curtail rivalries between commissionaires and ensure that no outside influences interfered with the businesslike management of the city.