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Economic Causes of Progressivism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2010

Ballard Campbell
Ballard Campbell
Affiliation:
Northeastern University
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Type
2004 SHGAPE Presidential Address
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , January 2005 , pp. 7 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2005

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References

1 Sherman, Richard B., “Foss of Massachusetts: Demagogue v. Progressive,” Mid-America 43 (April 1961): 79.Google Scholar

2 Greene, Frank, “High Prices and the Cost of Living,” Outlook 94 (March 12, 1910): 569Google Scholar; The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 22, 1910-1911, edited by Link, Arthur S. (Princeton, 1976), 252Google Scholar; Noyes, Alexander D., The War Period of American Finance, 1908–1925 (New York, 1926), 10–11Google Scholar.

3 Schluter, William S., The Pre-War Business Cycle, 1907 to 1914 (New York, 1923)Google Scholar; Friedman, Milton and Schwartz, Anna J., A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (Princeton, 1963), 156–73Google Scholar; , Noyes, War Period of American Finance, 9–11, 63–81Google Scholar; Mills, Frederick C., Economic Tendencies in the United States (New York, 1932)Google Scholar; Link, Arthur S., Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era (New York, 1954), 75Google Scholar; Gordon, Robert J., ed., The American Business Cycle (Chicago, 1986), Appendix B, esp. 802CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wiebe, Robert, Businessmen and Reform (Cambridge, MA, 1962), 68–70.Google ScholarOn unemployment, see Goldin, Claudia, “Labor Markets in the Twentieth Century,” in Cambridge Economic History of the United States, vol. 3, eds., Engerman, Stanley L. and Gallman, Robert E. (New York, 2000): 590.Google ScholarSee note 7 on real wages.

4 Douglas, Paul H., Real Wages in the United States, 1890–1926 (Boston, 1930), 406, 413Google Scholar; Keyssar, Alexander, Out of Work: The First Century of Unemployment in Massachusetts (Cambridge, MA, 1986): Table A.5Google Scholar; Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics, Statistics of Manufacturers, 1912 (Boston, 1914), esp. vi–xiiGoogle Scholar; Tingley, Donald F., The Structuring of a State: The History of Illinois, 1899–1928 (Urbana, 1980), 80.Google ScholarWage variations between locales are documented in U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,History of Wages in the United States From Colonial Times to 1928 (Washington, DC, 1934)Google Scholar; for example, see Table L–13 on male loom fixers in cotton goods. Evidence of suffering industries:Martin, Albro, Enterprise Denied: Origins of the Decline of American Railroads, 1897–1917 (New York, 1971), 124–36Google Scholar; U.S. Department of Commence, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, 1975)Google Scholar: series N 70, 116, 117 on construction and N 156, 162, 163, 1964 on housing, series K 508, 555, 585, 591 on wheat, cotton, cattle, and hogs.

5 Mitchell, Wesley C., Business Cycles (Berkeley, 1913), 82–88Google Scholar; , Noyes, War Period of American Finance, 9Google Scholar; Gras, N. S. B. and Larson, Henrietta M., Casebook in American Business History (New York, 1939), 726, 738Google Scholar; Faulkner, Harold U., The Decline of Laissez Faire, 1897–1917 (New York, 1951), 30–31Google Scholar; , Wiebe, Businessman and Reform, 70Google Scholar; , Friedman and , Schwartz, Monetary History, 173–4Google Scholar; Romer, Christina D., “Remeasuring Business Cycles,” Journal of Economic History 54 (September, 1994): 592, 604CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miron, Jeffrey A. and Romer, Christina D., “A New Monthly Index of Industrial Production, 1884–1940,” Journal of Economic History 50 (September, 1990): esp. 336–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Temin, Peter, “The Causes of the Business Cycle,” NBER Working Paper N. 6692 (August, 1998): 24, 32.Google ScholarTerrain claimed that not much is known about the economic trough of 1910–11 because it was not accompanied by a financial breakdown and therefore did not attract much contemporary attention or subsequent research: p. 24

6 Hofstader, Richard, The Age of Reform (New York, 1955), 168–73.Google ScholarMassachusetts House of Representatives,Report of the Committee on the Cost of Living (Massachusetts, 1910. House Document 1750)Google Scholar; , Mills, Economic Tendencies, 66–81Google Scholar; , Douglas, Real Wages, 36, 41Google Scholar; Pope, Daniel, “American Economists and the High Cost of Living: The Progressive Era,” Journal of the History of the Behavorial Sciences 17 (January, 1981): 75–873.0.CO;2-8>CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Horowitz, Daniel, The Morality of Spending: Attitudes Toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875–1940 (Baltimore, 1985), 71–82.Google ScholarHistorical Statistics of the United States, series E 23, 124, 128, 129 on all commodities, wheat flour, cotton sheeting, and anthracite coal.

7 Goldin, Claudia, “The Political Economy of Immigrant Restriction in the United States, 1890–1921,” in The Regulated Economy, eds. Goldin, Claudia and Libecap, Gary (Chicago, 1994), 223–57, esp. figure 7.3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Historical Statistics of the United States, series D 725, 742, 745, 743, 769, 775, 779–793; Douglas, Paul, Real Wages, 177, 183, 188, 198.Google ScholarDavid, Paul A. and Solar, Peter, “A Bicentenary Contribution to the Cost of Living in America,” Reviews in Economic History 2 (1977): 59Google Scholar.

8 For suggestions about the frequency, location, and character of strikes see Edwards, P. K., Strikes in the United States, 1881–1974 (New York, 1981), 16, 258, 301–6Google Scholar; Abrams, Richard M., Conservatism in a Progressive Era: Massachusetts Politics, 1900–1912 (Cambridge, 1964), 227–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rischin, Moses, The Promised City: New York's Jews, 1870–1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1962), 247–52Google Scholar; , Tingley, Illinois, 95–96Google Scholar; Brody, David, Steelworkers in America: The Nonunion Era (Cambridge, MA, 1962), 71, 73Google Scholar; Hesson, Robert, “The Bethlehem Steel Strike of 1910,” Labor History 15 (1974): 3–18Google Scholar.

3 My characterization of themes articulated in the 1910 campaign is based on various sources, including state party platforms, which were summarized in The World Almanac 1911,199ff. Useful secondary works are Buenker, John D., The Income Tax and the Progressive Era (New York, 1985), 136, 149Google Scholar; Sarasohn, David, The Party of Reform: Democrats in the Progressive Era (Jackson, MS, 1989), 88Google Scholar; , Hofstadter, Age of Reform, 170Google Scholar; Grant, Philip A., “Congressional Campaigns of James Cox, 1908 and 1910,” Ohio History 81 (Winter 1972): 12Google Scholar; The Outlook, Nov. 19, 1910, p. 607Google Scholar.

10 My analysis of the congressional elections of 1906 through 1914 for non-southern states is based on district level voting returns contained in Dubin, Michael J., United States Congressional Elections, 1788–1997 (Jefferson, NC, 1998)Google Scholar,Parsons, Stanley B., Dubin, M., and Parsons, K., United States Congressional Districts, 1883–1913 (New York, 1990)Google Scholar, and Martis, Kenneth C., The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789–1989 (New York, 1989).Google ScholarParsons, Congressional Elections, contain contains census information by district through the election of 1910. I supplemented these data with an analysis of voting in five districts at the town and ward level for Massachusetts (districts 3, 8, 10, and 13)and Rhode Island (district 1), using state and federal census data to characterize 115 voting constituencies. Election and census data were processed with SPSS. Because these analyses are in progress, my re-marks about voting in the congressional elections are more conjectural than conclusive. See , Sarasohn, Party of Reform, 28–29.Google ScholarKleppner, Paul, Continuity and Change in Electoral Politics, 1893–1928 (New York, 1987), 138–39Google Scholarbut also 127–36; Sanders, Elizabeth, The Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877–1917 (Chicago, 1999), 160–64, 341, 361Google Scholar.

11 Data on the defeat of incumbents and the seating of first term members taken from Dubin, Congressional Elections, “Statistical Summary” for the Fifty-Ninth through Sixty-Seventy Congresses.

12 The party distribution of state legislative seats was ascertained from state legislative manuals, supplemented by the electronic file of party strength in state legislatures maintained by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.

13 The discovery of unemployment as a social and political issue is examined in Garraty, John A., Unemployment in History (New York, 1978)Google Scholar, and , Keyssar, Out of Work. Sanders, Roots of Reform, 361.Google ScholarIn some urban districts, such as Chicago and certain Massachusetts cities, Democrats received fewer votes in 1914 than in 1910.

14 U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Annual Report, for 1908 through 1912; Historical Statistics of the United States, series Y 335–337.Savage, James, Balanced Budgets and American Politics (Ithaca, NY, 1988), 141–45.Google ScholarMy assessment of state and city finances is based on a variety of sources, such as Jewett, F. E., A Financial History of Maine (New York, 1937)Google Scholar; Sylla, Richard, “Long-Term Trends in State and Local Finance: Sources and Uses of Funds in North Carolina, 1800–1977,” in Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, eds., Engermann, Stanley L. and Gallman, Robert E. (Chicago, 1986): 819–68Google Scholar; Miller, Edmund Thornton, A Financial History of Texas (Austin, 1916).Google ScholarFor Massachusetts, see Report of the Auditor, for 1910–1912 (Boston, various years); Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics,Statistics of Municipal Finances for 1912–1913 (Boston, 1914. Public Doc. No 79)Google Scholar; , Boston, Final Report of the Boston Finance Com-mission (Boston, 1909, 4 vols.).Google ScholarNo comprehensive, annualized record of state or municipal finances exists for the early twentieth century. On this point see Monkkonen, Eric H., The Local State: Public Money and American Cities (Stanford, CA, 1995)Google Scholar.

15 Studenski, Paul and Krooss, Herman E., Financial History of the United States, 2nd ed. (New York, 1963), £263–70Google Scholar; Higgens-Evenson, R. Rudy, The Price of Progress: Public Services, Taxation, and the American Corporate State, 1877 to 1929 (Baltimore, 2003)Google Scholar; Campbell, Ballard C., The Growth of American Government (Bloomington, IN, 1995), 64–73Google Scholar.

16 , Studenski and , Krooss, Financial History of the United States, 271–2Google Scholar; , Buenker, Income Tax, 80–133.Google ScholarNine states ratified the Sixteenth Amendment in 1909–1910, twenty-one ratified it in 1911, four in 1912, and eight in 1913. On the politics of ratification in the states, see , Buenker, Income Tax. esp. 154–55.Google ScholarFaced with a deficit on assuming office, President Taft urged in his inaugural address the acquisition of new revenues rather than deep cuts in expenditures, arguing that “the scope of a modern government… has been widened far beyond the principles laid down by the old ‘laissez faire’ school of political writers.” Congressional Record, March 4, 1909, p. 4Google Scholar.

17 Kahn, Jonathan, Budgeting Democracy: State Building and Citizenship in America, 1890–1928 (Ithaca, NY, 1997)Google Scholar; , Savage, Balanced Budgets, 136–47.Google Scholar, Higgens-Evenson, Price of Progress, 101Google Scholar; Graves, W. Brooke, American Intergovernmental Relations (New York, 1964), 477–513Google Scholar.

18 Willoughby, William F., The Movement for Budgetary Reform in the States (New York, 1918)Google Scholar; Schiesl, Martin, The Politics of Efficiency: Municipal Administration and Reform in America, 1800–1920 (Berkeley, 1977)Google Scholar; Yearley, Clifton K., The Money Machines: The Breakdown and Reform of Governmental and Party Finance in the North, 1860–1920 (Albany, 1970)Google Scholar; Finegold, Kenneth, Experts and Politicians: Reform Challenges to Machine Politics in New York, Cleveland, and Chicago (Princeton, 1995).Google ScholarSchick, Thomas, The New York State Constitutional Convention of 1915 and the Modern State Governor (New York, 1978)Google Scholar; White, Leonard D., Trends in Public Administration (New York, 1933)Google Scholar; Graves, W. Brooke, American State Government, 3rd ed. (Boston, 1946), 406–22, 584–85.Google ScholarOn retrenchment of expenditures, see note 14 on public finance.

19 , Sanders, Roots of Reform, 225, 228, 252, 289, 291, 293, and 295Google Scholarfor the roll call votes.

20 , Sanders, Roots of Reform, ch. 7–10Google Scholar, which contain some party divisions from the Sixty-Second and Sixty-Fourth Congresses; p. 356 regarding the Democrats and labor measures.Carosso, Vincent P., Investment Banking in America: A History (Cambridge, MA, 1970), 135–53Google Scholar, reviews the Pujo Commission.

21 My comment about the timing of progressive reform in the states is based on monographic accounts of state political history and my annualized file of “significant” state actions for eight represented states (California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Virginia), compiled primarily from the secondary literature. My tally of significant state actions in the eight sampled states resulted in the following count: forty-nine acts in 1904–05, fifty-one in 1906–07, sixty-two in 1908–09, 102 in 1910–11, and 120 in 1912–13. By the sessions of 1916–17 the tally had dropped to twenty-nine.McCormick, Richard L., “The Discovery that Business Corrupts Politics: A Reappraisal of the Origins of Progressivism,” American Historical Review 86 (April 1981): 247–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, offers an alternate view. Corroboration of my chronology of progressive reform:, Sarasohn, Party of Reform, 112–18Google Scholar; Buenker, John D., Urban Liberalism and Progressive Reform (New York, 1973), esp. 34Google Scholar; and Robertson, David Brian, Capital, Labor and State (Lanham, MD, 2000)Google Scholar, esp. his chronology of AFL legislative successes, 145.

22 A summary of state actions during the Progressive Era appears in Campbbell, Balkrd C., “Federalism, State Action, and ‘Critical Episodes’ in the Growth of American Government,” Social Science History 16 (Winter, 1992): 572–74Google Scholar; Keller, Morton, Regulating a New Economy: Public Policy and Economic Change in America, 1900–1933 (Cambridge, MA, 1990)Google Scholarand Regulating a New Society: Public Policy and Social Change in America, 1900–1933 (Cambridge, MA, 1994)Google Scholar; , Buenker, Urban LiberalismGoogle Scholar.

23 For suggestions, see Campbell, Ballard C., “Tax Revolts and Political Change,” Journal of Policy History, 10 (1998): 153–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Comparative Perspectives on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 1 (April, 2002): 172–77Google Scholar.