Progressivism: A Very Short Introduction by Walter Nugent

Author:Walter Nugent [Nugent, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780195311068
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2010-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

7. William S. U’Ren conceived and led enactment of the “Oregon System,” probably the nation’s most successful synthesis of Populism and Progressivism.

Oregon System historian Robert Johnston sees its success and its support as resting on a lower middle class of small home owners, skilled workers, and mechanics who were not really very different in terms of wealth and class from small proprietors; indeed, they often moved from one group to the other in the course of their working lives. These were “average citizens” who formed the mass of the voting population. Their political philosophy owed much to the producerism of the late nineteenth century and its confidence in the harmony of the “producing classes”—which decidedly did not include the capitalists who employed and exploited thousands in their factories and who thereby amassed great fortunes.

Reform in Oregon, and all across the country, rested not only on visible and vigorous leaders like Bryan, TR, and La Follette. In fact, it would have gone nowhere unless workers, shopkeepers, agrarians, and “small” professionals like teachers, librarians, ministers, and editors gave the movement a broad followership and membership. Progressivism, in government and outside of it, whether focused on tax and income reform or social justice measures and institutions or improving personal and public morality, was coalescing into a broad national movement. Agrarian ideas from the Omaha Platform and producerism joined the programs of urban reformers. Very soon these would take shape in federal legislation including the four Progressive-era constitutional amendments (the income tax, direct election of U.S. senators, woman suffrage, and prohibition).

Rarely was the coalition that produced the Oregon System replicated elsewhere with any precision. But by 1908 the many strands of reform, both in and out of politics and law, were forming a coherent—and rapidly growing—consensus for social and political change. Laissez-faire was out, governmental power in—first at the local and state levels and before long, at the federal.

The election of 1908 did not yet reveal a coherent, fully mature Progressive movement in national politics, but Republican hegemony was shakier than it looked. By 1908 nearly half of the states—a dozen outside the South—were using primary elections to select candidates for office. In a number of congressional districts, “insurgents”—the name then given to reform-minded Republicans—had toppled standpat conservatives. In some places, conservatives simply retired in the face of reform strength in their districts. This was especially true from the upper Mississippi Valley westward. Party loyalty, especially to the dictatorial Speaker Joseph G. Cannon of Illinois, was substantially weaker among the new congressmen elected in 1908, who took office in March 1909. Together they would break the grasp of Cannon and usher in the true heyday of Progressivism. The many strands of reform comprising early Progressivism, both in and beyond politics, law, and government, the promoters of social justice and women’s rights, the educational reformers and the slum cleaners, would finally coalesce into a mature political movement. The day of maturation had not quite arrived by the 1908 election, but it came very soon after

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