Presidents Back Progressive Goals

 Republican President William McKinley is elected President  McKinley popularity soared as business boomed

 Business expanded and unemployment fell  By 1900 McKinley realized that Progressive were gaining strength. With this in mind he chose Theodore Roosevelt as his running mate

 Teddy Roosevelt or TR came from a wealthy New York family. As a child he was often sick but lifted weights, ran, and boxed  Roosevelt supported many Progressive goals and hated corruption. He believed government should protect public interest

 By age 26 Roosevelt was serving in the New York State legislature  Tragically his mother and wife died on the same day

 He quit politics and moved to a cattle ranch in present day North Dakota  2 year later TR returned east  He served on the Civil Service Commission  1898 Roosevelt signed up to fight the war against Spain  1898 he was elected governor of New York

 Roosevelt pushed for reform  He was call a goo goo, a nickname for someone who wanted good government  Sept an assassin shot and killed President McKinley, Roosevelt become President

 TR thought the good trusts should be left alone  TR thought the government should either control or break up the trusts that cheated the public and took advantage of its workers

 This was Roosevelt government test case  1902 TR ordered the Attorney General to bring a lawsuit against the Northern Securities Case  This giant trust had been put together by J.P. Morgan  TR argued that Northern Securities used unfair practices in violation of the Sherman Act.

 Other businesses worried because they operated like Northern Securities. If its practices were illegal so were theirs  Ordinary people supported the President

 The Supreme Court found that Northern Securities had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by limiting trade  It ordered the trust to be broken up  The decision showed the effects of the Progressive Movement

- TR then ordered the Attorney General to file suit against other trusts that had broken the law - Some business leader referred to TR as a trustbuster - Trustbuster- someone who wanted to destroy all trusts

 TR crashed with the mine owners  1902 coal miners in Pennsylvania went on strike  They wanted better pay and a shorter work day

 As winter approached schools and hospitals ran out of coal  TR threatened to send troops in to run the mines  As a result owners sat down with the union and reached and agreement

 Working people around the country cheered  Other Presidents used troops to break strikes  TR was the first to side with labor against mine owners

 1904 Roosevelt runs for President promising American a square deal  Square Deal- all Americans should have equal opportunity to succeed  The promise helped TR win by a landslide

 TR knew the ICC had done little to end rebated and other abuses of the railroad  Elkins Act: 1903 outlawed rebated  Hepburn Act: 1906 gave the ICC greater power including the right to set railroad rates

 TR read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle; as a result he sent more inspectors to meatpacking houses  Owners refused to let inspectors in  TR sent newspapers copies of government report supporting Sinclair’s pictures of the meatpacking industry

 1906 Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act: it forced meat packing to open their doors to inspectors  Muckrakers had revealed that the food industry was adding dangerous chemicals to canned foods

 Pure Food and Drug Act: required food and rug makers to list all ingredients on their packages ◦ Also tried to end false advertisement ◦ Ban the use of impure ingredients

 TR loved the outdoors  He was alarmed about the destruction of the wilderness  Conservation: protection of natural resources  Some forest and mountain areas should be left as wilderness  He wanted lumber companies to replants trees

 1908 TR supported William Taft in the Presidential election  TR then left for a year to hunt big game in Africa

 Taft was very different from TR  Like TR, Taft supported Progressive causes  He pushed ahead with trust busting  Taft lost support of the Progressives when he signed a tariff bill that Progressive opposed and he blocked conservation policies they supported  TR returned from Africa to find out reformers felt Taft betrayed them

 TR decides to run against Taft in the 1912 Republican Primary

 Many Republican business people distrusted TR so they chose Taft as their candidate  Progressive Republicans were furious and marched out of the Convention  They set up their own party, the Progressive Party  They chose TR to run for President  TR said “I feel as strong as a bull” He and his supporters became known as the Bull Moose Party

 Democrats chose Woodrow Wilson, a progressive as their candidate  Wilson won the election on 1912  Taft and Roosevelt split the Republican votes helping Wilson to win by getting mostly all Democrats votes

 New Freedom: Wilson’s program to split up trusts and restore competition  He pushed for a lower tariff to increase competition from foreigners  Congress imposed a graduate income tax  Federal Reserve Act: passed to regulate banking

 Wilson realized he could not break up large corporations just try and control them  Federal Trade Commission: they had power to investigate companies and order them to stop using unfair business  Clayton Antitrust Act: banned some business practices limiting competition and barred antitrust laws from being used against unions

 After 1914 the Progressive Era slowed  They had reached many of their goals and war in Europe caught American attention