Emily Freiman
Chapter 21 Questions
1.
The reform impulse had many sources. Industrial capitalism had created awesome technology,
unprecedented productivity, and a cornucopia of consumer goods. But it also brought harmful
overproduction, domineering monopolies, labor strife, and the spoiling of natural resources. In
addressing these problems, progressives organized their ideas and actions around three goals.
First, they sought to end abuses of power like attacks on unfair privilege, monopolies, and
corruption. Second, progressives aimed to supplant corrupt power with humane institutions such
as schools, charities, and medical clinics. Progressives acknowledged that society had
responsibility and power to improve individual lives, and they believed that the government must
intervene. Third, progressives wanted to apply scientific principles and efficient management to
economic, social, and political institutions. Their aim was to establish bureaus of experts that
would end wasteful competition and promote social and economic order.
2.
Muckrakers fed public taste for scandal and sensation by exposing social, economic, and
political wrongs. Their investigative articles in
McClure’s Cosmopolitan
, and other popular
magazines attacked adulterated foods, fraudulent insurance, prostitution, and other offenses.
Lincoln Steffens’s articles in
McClure's
, later published as
The Shame of the Cities
(1904),
epitomized the muckraking style. Steffens hoped his exposés of bosses’ misrule would inspire
mass outrage and, ultimately, reform. Other well-known muckraking efforts included Upton
Sinclair's
The Jungle
(1906), a novel that disclosed crimes of the meat packing industry and Ida
Tarbell‘s Critical History of Standard Oil (1904).
3.
To improve politics, progressives advocated nominating candidates through direct primaries
instead of party caucuses and holding non-partisan elections to prevent the fraud and bribery
bred by party loyalties. To make officeholders more responsible, progressives pressed for three
reforms: the initiative, which permitted voters to propose new laws; the referendum, which
enabled voters to accept or reject a law; and the recall, which allowed voters to remove offending
officials and judges from office before their terms expired. Their goal, like that of the business
consolidation movement, was efficiency: they would re-claim government by replacing the boss
system with accountable managers chosen by a responsible electorate.
4.
Eugene V. Debs, the unions intense and animated president, converted to socialism while
serving a six-month present term for defining an injunction against the Pullman strike. Once
released, Debs became the leading spokesman for American socialism, combining visionary
Marxism with Jeffersonian and populist anti-monopoly is on. Some disillusioned people moved
beyond progressive reform; they wanted a different society all together. A blend of immigrant
intellectuals, industrial workers, disaffected populists, minors, and women’s rights activists –
they turned to the socialist movement. The majority of socialists united behind Eugene V. Debs.
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- Fall '19
