Has there ever been a Conservative Era? hardly found..since by today standards of "conservative religion" even Republicans such as Nixon and Reagan are liberals who help build our country alongside progressives thru many liberal policies..
The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from 1890s to the 1920s.[1] One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political machines and bosses.
Many (but not all) Progressives supported prohibition in order to destroy the political power of local bosses based in saloons.[2] same time, women's suffrage was promoted to bring a "purer" female vote into the arena.[3] A second theme was achieving efficiency in every sector by identifying old ways that needed modernizing, and emphasizing scientific,
medical and engineering solutions.
Many people led efforts to reform local government, public education, medicine, finance, insurance, industry, railroads, churches, and many other areas. Progressives transformed, professionalized and made "scientific" the social sciences, especially history,[4] economics,[5] and political science.[6] In academic fields the day of the amateur gave way to the research professor who published in the new scholarly journals and presses.
The national political leaders included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Charles Evans Hughes on the Republican side, William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson and Al Smith on the Democratic side.
Initially the movement operated chiefly at local levels; later it expanded to state and national levels. Progressives support from the middle class, and supporters included many lawyers, teachers, physicians, ministers and business people.[7] The Progressives strongly supported scientific methods as applied to economics, government, industry, finance, medicine, schooling, theology, education, and even the family.
They closely followed advances underway the time in Western Europe[8] and adopted numerous policies, such as the banking laws which became the Federal
Reserve System in 1914. They felt that old-fashioned ways meant waste and inefficiency, and eagerly sought out "one best system".[9][10]
The Progressive Era was one of general prosperity after the Panic of 1893—a severe depression—ended in 1897.
The Panic of 1907 was short and mostly affected financiers. However, Campbell (2005) stresses the weak points the economy in 1907–1914, linking them to public demands for more Progressive interventions.
The Panic of 1907 was followed by a small decline in real wages and increased unemployment, with both trends continuing until War I. Campbell emphasizes the resulting stress on public finance and the impact on the Wilson administration's
policies.
The weakened economy and persistent federal deficits led to changes in fiscal policy, including the
imposition of federal income taxes on businesses and individuals and the creation of the Federal Reserve System. [52] Government agencies were also transformed in an effort to improve administrative efficiency.[53]
In the Gilded Age (late 19th century) the parties were reluctant to involve the federal government too heavily in the private sector, except in the area of railroads and tariffs. In general, they accepted the concept of laissez-faire, a doctrine opposing government interference in the economy except to maintain law and order. This attitude started change during the depression of the 1890s when small business, farm, and labor movements began asking the
government to intercede on their behalf.[53]
By the turn of the century, a middle class had developed that was leery of both the business elite and the radical political movements of farmers and laborers in the Midwest and West. The progressives argued the need for government regulation of business practices to ensure competition and free enterprise.
Congress enacted a law regulating railroads in 1887 (the Interstate Commerce Act), and one preventing large firms from controlling a single industry in 1890 (the Sherman Antitrust Act). These laws were not rigorously enforced, however, until the years
between 1900 and 1920, when Republican President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909), Democratic President Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921), and others sympathetic to the views of the Progressives came to power.
Many of today's U.S. regulatory agencies were created during these years, including the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. Muckrakers were journalists who encouraged readers to demand more regulation of business.
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906) was influential and persuaded America about the
supposed horrors of the Chicago Union Stock Yards (though Sinclair himself never visited the site), a giant complex meat processing that developed in the 1870s. The federal government responded to Sinclair's book and The Neill-Reynolds Report with the new regulatory Food and Drug Administration. Ida M. Tarbell wrote a series of articles against Standard Oil, which was perceived to be a monopoly.
This affected both the government and the public reformers. Attacks by Tarbell and others helped pave the way for public acceptance of the breakup of the company the Supreme Court in 1911.[53]
When Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected President with a Democratic Congress in 1912 he implemented series of progressive policies in economics. In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified, and a small income was imposed on high incomes.
The Democrats lowered tariffs with the Underwood Tariff in 1913, though its effects
were overwhelmed by the changes in trade cause by the World War that broke out in 1914. Wilson proved especially effective in mobilizing public opinion behind tariff changes by denouncing corporate lobbyists, addressing Congress in person in highly dramatic fashion, and staging an elaborate ceremony when he signed the bill into law.[54]
Wilson helped end the long battles over the trusts with the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. He managed to convince lawmakers on the issues of money and banking by the creation in 1913 of the Federal Reserve System, a complex businessgovernment
partnership that to this day dominates the financial world.[55]
In 1913, Henry Ford, adopted the moving assembly line, with each worker doing one simple task in the production automobiles. Taking his cue from developments during the progressive era[citation needed], Ford offered a very generous wage—$5 a day—to his (male) workers, arguing that a mass production enterprise could not survive average workers could not buy the goods.
Labor unions, especially the American Federation of Labor (AFL) grew rapidly in the early 20th century, and had progressive agenda as well. After experimenting in the early 20th century with cooperation with business in the National Civic Federation, it turned after 1906 to a working political alliance with the Democratic party.
The alliance was especially important in the larger industrial cities. The unions wanted restrictions on judges who intervened labor disputes, usually on the side of the employer. They finally achieve that goal with the Norris-LaGuardia Act 1932.[57]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era
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