0.1 The progressive era (part ii)  (Page 3/11)

Taft’s history in the Progressive conservation movement is even less effective than his dealings with labor or big business. The president fired Teddy Roosevelt’s right-hand man in the conservation movement, Gifford Pinchot, ultimately costing the Republicans needed votes among environmental and conservative-minded western voters. However, Taft tended to hold true to the notion that the federal government’s roles in regulating the environment must be severely limited, instead wanting states to take the lead in conservation.

Taft, adhering to a hands-off policy established by the Rutherford B. Hays in 1877 and possibly due to his belief in the inherent power of state governments, typically refused to get involved in racial matters such as segregation or lynchings. Although just before leaving office in 1913, Taft vetoed a resolution that would have allowed the federal government to prohibit entrance to the U.S. for any immigrant who failed to demonstrate a basic literacy in English. Taft’s record on progressive domestic affairs is scant, at best, in part due to his unpopularity at home. Typically, when American presidents are incapable of forwarding meaningful domestic agendas, they tend to become more involved in foreign ventures, where presidents wield more power and are outside of the direct control of the legislative branch of the government.

WOODROW WILSON:

The Crusader President

The Progressive era president most closely associated with establishing the relationship between the federal government and the economy as well as creating the now widespread American belief in the necessity of the federal government to control the U.S. economy was Woodrow Wilson.

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act, as demonstrated in the Taft’s administration’s inability to effectively regulate monopolies, was narrowly applied by the court to the extent that only monopolies that were illegally established could be confronted by the federal government. To close this loophole, Congress passed and Wilson signed into law the Clayton Act. Wilson, when campaigning in 1912, promised Americans that as president he would more aggressively than his predecessors attack all constraint of trade in order to create an open market. (In 1917 Wilson called for the creation of an international economic system unconstrained by even tariffs.) The Clayton Act fell short of Wilson’s election-year promises. Instead of forging a stronger weapon, the Clayton Act merely enacted more harsh penalties for corporations that were found guilty of breaking the Sherman Act.

Wilson was successful, however, in getting legislation passed that would assist American workers. In 1914, and by the Progressive Wisconsin Republican “Fighting” Bob La Follette, the La Follette-Peters Act limited women garment workers in Washington D.C. to working eight hours per day. In 1915 La Follette’s Seaman’s Act tried to help American sailors by restricting their working hours and enhancing their working conditions. The Adamson Act prohibited American rail workers from working more than eight hours per day. The first measure was adopted in order to protect the traditionally-viewed job of women as caregivers and homemakers, while the other two acts were passed for safety reasons. Wilson supported the adoption of these measures.