Progressives were people who saw the ending of the

Progressives were people who saw the ending of the frontier and rise/abuse of big business (corruption, government,
monopoly, trust, etc.)
○ They believed that it was abuse and inefficiencies. Wanted a reform in business/politics in the way they operated.
● Gospel of Efficiency
Lecture - Conservation and the US Forest Service
● General Land Office (GLO)
○ Forest reserves would remain and be open for commercial use (under government supervision, contracts can harvest trees and
graze livestock and mining)
○ Management of reserves fell to the General Land Office (GLO) in the Department of the Interior. GLO is to sell public land (fairly
corrupt organization)
■ Pinchot didn’t want anything to do with the GLO. Didn’t believe that the GLO should be managing the forest reserves
and they did not have trained foresters
■ Pinchot went back to private practice after writing the act (Forest Management Act)
● Division of Forestry
○ Department of agriculture, had 15 people in the office. The director had retired and recruited Pinchot in 1898. He later
expanded
● Bureau of Forestry (1901)
○ In 1902, the Bureau of Forestry was given management of the Minnesota National Forest
○ Became a progressive essence
● Minnesota National Forest
○ Was transferred to the Bureau of Forestry and each year, funding increased and gained more and more holdings as funding
increased
● Florence Bramhall
○ Read Pinchots work about forestry and used her influences to get the Minnesota National Forest to be under the management
of the Bureau of Forestry
○ Was a progressive and believed that forestry was an important part of progressivism.
○ Also an advocate to giving women the right to vote
● US Department of Agriculture
● Progressive Era (1890-1920)
○ Believed that corruption in government and business hurt the nation’s progress, therefore progressives
○ People who were of Enlightenment thought, well educated, urban, trained in scientific or professional skills, lived in cities
○ Abuses that were hurting the nation. Workers being abused in business.
○ Into efficiency. Believed that American business should be efficient and American government be efficient
○ Idea of efficiency as a religion - Gospel of Efficiency
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○ Pinchot was a progressive and sought to bring efficiency in government. Create big government to regulate big business. Big
government would guide better than big business
○ Two Schools of Thought
■ 1) All that is needed is to restore competition (eliminate ability for some competitions to crush and destroy)
■ 2) Create big government to regulate big business - the Republican idea
● Pinchot and (Teddy) Roosevelt believed big business was fine/good, but there were problems, such as
unregulated big businesses. They wanted to create big government that were efficient and scientifically
based to regulate
● Hated waste of resources - example was the extinction of the buffalo
● Represents the beginning of big government in the early stages
● Abuses
● Inefficiencies (GLO)
○ GLO didn’t want to manage the reserves. Strongly dominated congress (liberal wing) and therefore passed the Transfer Act