May 12 Handout

20th Century U.S. Politics
Progressivism
May 12, 2008

I. Transformation of American Society

1. The Nature of the Gilded Age (economics: industrialization and its effects—railroads, monopolies, immigration, weakness of US labor unions; race: gutting Reconstruction—13th through 15th amendments, Cruikshank—1875 enforcement act to prosecute KKK, court says B of R not incorporated; Civil Rights Cases 1883—congress doesn't have power to outlaw discrimination by bus, private orgs; anti-Chinese activism and Chinese Exclusion Act; role of California politics, Yick Wo and 14th amendment—race neutral on face might not be in practice; politics: Gilded Age system, popular participation, and limited role of federal government, third-party threats, Populists and historiography; Jim Crow laws, Plessy, 1896 as realigning election)

2. Imperialism and Foreign Policy (Civil War legacy and the executive’s international power; the Alaska Treaty; growing power of treatymaking clause: Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and the Senate anti-expansionist consensus; bypassing constitutional niceties—Hawaiian annexation; respecting the warmaking clause—Teller amendment; Treaty of Paris: Hoar and the decline of the anti-imperialists, Pettigrew and economic critique of Constitution, weakness of Democratic dissent; Beveridge and imitating Britain, generational shift?; outbreak of fighting in the Philippines; what were the key questions?; Insular Cases and constitutional theory; role of Treasury Department)

II. The Progressive Era Dawns


1. The Judiciary and Economic Reform (Lochner and the court system—free contract invalidates maximum workweek law; limited scope of reform—Muller v. Oregon; progressivism and the regulatory impulse; ICC and origins of regulation; Bureau of Corporations, Food and Drug Act; enforcing Sherman Anti-Trust Act—from Northern Securities Co. v. U.S. (1904) to Standard Oil v. U.S. (1911) and “rule of reason” test—only monopolies "unreasonably" restraining trade are problemmatic; new issues ahead of law: utilities, energy, electricity, mass transit; how to regulate?; La Follette and roll call reporting; role of judicial ecall; Norris and progressive reformers in Congress; nature of press—yellow journalism and muckrakers)

2. Progressive Society (three strands of progressivism: anti-monopolism, social reform, social control/cohesion; role of state, power of ideas and uplift; grassroots movements—Addams and Hull House, WCTU, education reform; importance of TR; limitations of progressive reform—middle-class values?)

3. The Law and Progressive Foreign Policy (Platt Amendment and Cuba; Panama Canal, interpreting the Bidlack’s Treaty, and executive unilateralism; protectorate by executive authority?—Dominican Republic and customs receivership; Bacon, Rayner dissents; Taft, Dollar Diplomacy, and non-recognition; Nicaraguan controversy; emergence of international law; Lake Mohonk Conferences; international law and The Hague; limits of vision—2nd Venezuela crisis)

Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment
Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform
Daniel Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings
Richard Weibe, Search for Order