Chapter 9:Roosevelt and the Modern Presidency

 Freedom: A History of US  Disc 3  Yearning to Breathe Free  The Presidents  Disc 2  McKinley to Wilson

William McKinley Theodore Roosevelt William Howard Taft Woodrow Wilson

William McKinley (R) Theodore Roosevelt (R) William Howard Taft (R) Woodrow Wilson (D)

 Republican from Ohio  Last president to have fought in the Civil War  Believed in the gold standard  Defeated William Jennings Bryan twice for the presidency  Spanish-American War 1898  Assassinated September 1901 at  Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo

Teddy Roosevelt Youngest president

 Progressive Republican from New York with a difference  An original  Didn’t think in terms of pure political party  Represented the people  Complicated man  Conservative—Wanted reform  Hunter—Started conservation movement  Hawk—Won Nobel Peace Prize  Most electrifying politician of his generation  Shrewd, energetic, charismatic  Spanish-American war hero—Rough RidersRough Riders  Nobel Peace Prize  Big Stick  Square Deal  Trust buster, Conservationist  Conservation—his most enduring achievement

 Republican from Ohio  Personal and political friend of Roosevelt  Governor General of Philippines  Legal mind—not a natural politician  “Politics makes me sick.”  Bigger trust buster than TR  Rift with Roosevelt split the Republican Party  Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

 Progressive Democrat  From New Jersey  (née Virginia)  President Princeton University  Governor of New Jersey  New Freedom—“triple wall of privilege”  Idealist, visionary  World War I  First president to leave U.S. while in office  Versailles Treaty  League of Nations

Overcrowded Cities Political Corruption Depletion of Natural Resources Unequal Distribution of Wealth Muckrakers

 Confusion of ethics  Social/economic problems too complex for old set of laws  Rise of big business  Control of natural resources  Exploitation of labor, children, immigrants  Rise of the city  Overcrowding, epidemics, sewage, poverty, schools  Breakdown of political honesty  Gentlemen not in politics  Results not methods  Grossly unequal distribution of wealth  Social and class divisions along economic lines  Denial to Negro of constitutional rights

 People who want reform/change  Political  More democracy to put power in the hands of the people not the moneyed interests  Will of the people is sacred  Economic  To cleanse capitalism  Redistribute the wealth  Protect natural resources  Social  Education is a prerequisite for responsible citizenship  Favored free public and universal education through secondary school  Industrial accidents  End child labor  End exploitation of labor and the immigrant  Subjugation of America’s nine million blacks

 Exposed inequities that afflicted American life  Stirred public opinion to support reform  Coined by Teddy Roosevelt

Attack on predatory wealth and conspicuous consumption

 Indictment of dirt, disease, vice, misery in city slums  Influenced future governor, Theodore Roosevelt

Ida Tarbell  Pioneering woman journalist  The History of Standard Oil  Published 1904  Devastating and factual exposé of Standard Oil

Poor neighborhood, Philadelphia 1915 Scenes like this in the immigrant wards of America's great cities stirred middle-class reformers to action at the turn of the century.

 Popular magazines  Waged circulation wars  Dug deep for the dirt  Muckrakers obliged The Shame of the Cities  Lincoln Steffans  Corrupt alliance between business and government  Charged that 75 of the 90 senators represented the railroads not the people  Backed by facts Ida Tarbell

 Most progressives were middle class men and women  Sensed pressure from  Giant corporations  Restless immigrants  Aggressive labor unions  Wanted  Government to curb the trusts  Stem the Socialist threat by improving average person’s life

Political Social Economic

 Australian ballot  Secret, uniform, private ballot  Locked box  Paid judges of elections  Only eligible voters—only once  1888 Massachusetts—first  Direct primary elections  People choose candidates in special elections  Replaced party bosses and other officials making the choice  First  1842 Pennsylvania—county  1903 Wisconsin—state

 Initiative  Create new legislation  Referendum  Repeal old legislation  Recall  Remove undesirable official from office  Western states –most progressive  California Oregon Wisconsin

 “Fighting Bob” La Follette  Militant progressive  Republican governor from Wisconsin  Regulated  Lumber  Railroads  Public utilities

 History  U.S. Constitution called for  State legislatures to choose U.S. senators  Framers feared popular rule  Progressives felt indirect election meant selection by powerful business interests  Millionaire’s Club  Pressure for change

 Women guaranteed the right to vote  Previously states determined who could vote  Pre Civil War women’s suffrage movement gained momentum after the war  1890 Wyoming  First state to allow women to vote  1893 Colorado allowed women to vote Suffragists

Suffrage parade Suffrage leaders built support for the cause by using modern advertising and publicity techniques, including automobiles festooned with flags, bunting, banners, posters, and--in this case--smiling little girls.

Woman Suffrage Before 1920

Before Congress passed and the states ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, woman suffrage already existed, but mainly in the West. Several midwestern states allowed women to vote only in presidential elections, but legislatures in the South and Northeast generally refused such rights until forced to do so by constitutional amendment.

Scribner's magazine cover May 1898 Athletics, the bicycle vogue, and colleges for women such as Wellesley helped give middle-class young women a sense of new possibilities at the dawn of the twentieth century.

 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire 1911  146 female garment workers died or jumped to their deaths  Ladders from fire company did not reach to the ninth and tenth storey  Exits were locked  Worst workplace disaster in New York until 9/11

 New York and other states passed laws regulating hours and conditions in firetraps like Triangle Shirtwaist Factory  Muller v. Oregon 1908  Landmark case  Crusading attorney Louis Brandeis (future Supreme Court justice)  Decision  Constitutionality of laws giving special protection to women  Seemed discriminatory by later standards yet  Hailed at the time as a triumph for workers  1917 Supreme Court  Upheld a ten-hour work day law  Employer has responsibility to society

 Alcohol –demon rum—connected with  Prostitution  Crooked city officials  Drunken voters  New York and San Francisco  One saloon for every 200 people  Organizations that crusaded for reform  Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)  Founded by Frances Willard  Largest women’s organization in the world  Anti-Saloon League  Crusaded to outlaw liquor  States and numerous counties passed  “Dry laws”  Big cities were generally “wet”

 “…Sale, manufacture or transportation of intoxicating liquors…is…prohibited”  1933 Twenty-first Amendment  Repealed prohibition

Corporations Consumer Protection Conservation

 Control corporations  Consumer protection  Conservation of natural resources

 Workers’ Conditions  hour days  $8/week  Child labor abuse  140,000 miners struck  Workers demanded  9 hour day  20% pay increase  Effects of the strike  Coal supplies dwindled  Factories, schools, hospitals closed due to cold

 Roosevelt  Summoned owners and workers to White House  Threatened to use army to seize the mines  Outcomes  Major success for labor  However—no official recognition of the union  Owners agree to arbitration  Agree to  10% wage increase  9 hour day  First time president intervened on the side of labor  Turning point in labor relations  Led to Roosevelt urging Congress to create the  Department of Commerce and Labor 1903  1913 Split—two departments

 Elkins Act 1903  Fines on  Railroads who give rebates and  Shippers who accept them  Hepburn Act 1906  Free passes—severely restricted  Expanded the power of the ICC to  Regulate  Sleeping car companies  Pipelines  Authorized ICC to  Nullify existing rates  Stipulate maximum rates

 1904 Northern Securities CaseNorthern Securities Case  Directed his Attorney General to initiate  40 cases against other monopolies  Supreme Court declared illegal  Beef trust  Sugar trust  Fertilizer trust  Harvesters trust  However  Feared total break-up of trusts  Time honored belief in free enterprise Roosevelt Turns the Screws on the Trusts The cartoon exaggerates Roosevelt’s impact on the corporation giants.

PPressure for reform in meat and food industry TTainted beef FForeign governments threatened to ban all U.S. meat UUpton Sinclair’s The Jungle aroused public outcry RRoosevelt appointed a special commission to investigate the industry SSpanish-American war veterans complained of spoiled, wormy food PPublic anger at poisonous foods and drugs and false claims by producers

 Meat Inspection Act 1906  Federal inspection of all meats entering interstate commerce  Pure Food and Drug Act 1906  Prevented the manufacture, sale and transportation of unclean, misbranded or poisonous  Foods  Drugs  Medicines  Liquors

Roosevelt with naturalist John Muir Glacier Point, on the rim of Yosemite Valley In the distance is Yosemite Falls A few feet behind Roosevelt is a sheer drop of 3,254 feet  Resources rapidly being depleted  Roosevelt  Huntsman  Naturalist  Rancher  Appalled at pillaging of timber and mineral resources  Newlands Reclamation Act 1902  Funds collected from the sale of public lands would be used in irrigation projects and dam buildingirrigation projects and dam building  1911 Roosevelt Dam  Salt River in Arizona  Enabled the irrigation of over  200,000 acres of desert

Irrigation and Conservation in the West to 1917

 Roosevelt  Set aside 125 million acres of the great fir forests in public reserve public reserve  Set aside millions of acres of coal deposits and water resources  Gifford Pinchot—Head of U.S. Forest Service  Developed a policy of multiple-use resource management  Use natural resources intelligently  Combine recreation, sustained-yield logging, watershed protection on same expanse of federal land  Most enduring achievement

Sunrise, Yosemite Valley, California Albert Bierstadt, c. 1870

Theodore Roosevelt Gifford Pinchot Two friends and allies in the conservation cause Aboard the steamboat Mississippi on a 1907 tour with the Inland Waterways Commission.

 Antiquities Act 1906  Gave the president by executive order the right to  Restrict the use of particular public land owned by the federal government  Used over a hundred times since its passage  Teddy Roosevelt  Grand Canyon National Monument, Arizona  Devils Tower, Wyoming

Grand Canyon

National Parks and Forests

The United States A wave of admissions between 1889 and 1912 brought remaining territories to statehood and marked the final creation of new states until Alaska and Hawaii were admitted in the 1950s.

1903 Quentin, TR, Ted jr., Archie, Alice, Kermit, Edith, Ethel