by Gene TeSelle
Recently I have been looking into the Progressive Era, because for the churches a hundred-year anniversary is coming up. In 1908 the Federal Council of Churches was organized, and at that time it adopted, without dissent, a statement that came to be called “the Social Creed of the churches.”
This document dealt with issues of labor and industry that are still with us, and many Protestants have felt that a “new Social Creed” is needed for the hundredth anniversary. The United Methodists have drafted one that is in song form, especially appropriate for our post-print era. The Presbyterians have drafted what is basically an adaptation and expansion of the 1908 document, and it is to be voted on at the General Assembly in June, 2008. The National Council of Churches (successor to the Federal Council) has already adopted a slightly different version.
We cannot help noting the similarities between 1908 and 2008. Inequalities of income and wealth in the U.S. are now greater than they have been since the “Gilded Age” of the late nineteenth century. Corporate and government scandals are approaching the same level, too. There seems to be something about American enterprise that encourages sharp dealing and political corruption.
There are also significant differences. Back then, the two major political parties were quite diverse, regionally and ideologically. Progressive leaders emerged from both the Democrats and the Republicans. And of course the Populists and then the Socialists had strength at the polls. Now the parties are much more homogeneous, diametrically opposed on most issues.
Furthermore, the problems addressed by the Social Creed were national in scope. Because these problems could not be solved adequately at the local or state level, new kinds of federal legislation were advocated and eventually adopted. In our own day we see a further broadening of scope as the much-celebrated globalization of the economy brings all the workers of the world into potential competition with each other and requires a new kind of global response.
Just because there are similar problems, it does not mean that they will be addressed any more effectively than a hundred years ago. And by “addressing” I mean a number of different things – awareness, public agitation, theoretical proposals, legislation introduced, passed, signed, and upheld by the Supreme Court.
The Progressive agenda took at least three decades to be realized during the New Deal, and since that time we have seen it not only expanded but whittled away or repealed or silently subverted, not only by Republican administrations but by Democratic.
That’s why it is important to be aware that it happened slowly and through struggle, not all at once.
In the course of looking at the Progressive Era I have arrived at a generalization, or a theory, or a thesis: that it happened in three phases. This may be typical of reform movements, and if so it may be instructive for us today.
1. The period from the Civil War to the turn of the century saw a growth in industrial capacity, the size of corporations, and opportunities for employers to put new pressures on industrial and railroad workers, farmers, and small businesses.
We know especially about Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (1879), Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888), Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives (1890), and Charles Sheldon’s In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? (1897). Many people credited Henry George with turning them around. These and other writings altered the framework within which people looked at social problems.
This first phase, from 1880 to 1900, did not bring much change; its importance was in raising consciousness, outlining often utopian solutions, and demonstrating that those affected were ready to organize and express their indignation, often militantly.
2. The second phase began around 1900. The reform agenda that had been building since the 1880s became effective when new political leaders caught the public’s attention and captured its loyalties – Robert La Follette, a Republican; William Jennings Bryan, a Democrat; and especially Theodore Roosevelt, a maverick who was sidelined into the office of Vice-President to keep him out of trouble but soon became President after the assassination of McKinley. And then Woodrow Wilson, who began as a Southern conservative, adopted the progressive agenda. His candidacy in 1912 helped Southerners think more positively about that agenda. His election was the beginning of a party realignment in which the Democrats became more progressive and the Republicans more conservative.
In addition, the new mass-circulation periodicals brought investigative and advocacy journalism to a high pitch, which helped radicalize the moralistic middle class. They had their heyday during the Roosevelt administration, whose reforms were fueled by stories in the popular press, even though he also coined the term “muckrakers” to criticize them (as a political strategy, we should note). Upton Sinclair, whose novel The Jungle was an instant sensation in 1906 and led within months to the passage of the Meat Inspection and Pure Food and Drug Acts, reflected later in the same year that he had aimed at the public’s heart but by accident hit it in the stomach (Cosmopolitan, October 1906).
There is a long list of legislative achievements during the Progressive Era, as well as four constitutional amendments: income tax, direct election of senators, prohibition, and woman suffrage. But many of the new laws were overturned by a conservative Supreme Court; the list of the Court’s decisions is amazing and disappointing.
3. Now the third phase: discovery of what the legislative program could not do. It was a time of cultural innovation of many kinds, in art and architecture, poetry, a revolt against middle class morality, a development of alternative communities. It was also the time when Christianity saw the growth not only of the Social Gospel but of the Holiness and Pentecostal movements, as well as fundamentalism and millennialism. Obviously politics did not satisfy all needs. There are a number of books that deal with this “cultural” aspect of the Progressive Era, the latest of which is Michael McGerr’s A Fierce Discontent (2002).
As we try to frame a progressive vision for our own time, these lessons are probably worth pondering. A vision, even a utopian vision, seems to be necessary. But it does not get translated into legislation without organized movements – or without leaders who have high visibility as symbols of those movements. And we need to be reminded, finally, that any legislative accomplishments are likely to be limited, perhaps even ambivalent in their impacts. That’s why cultural movements must also have a place, and it may often turn out that we find our fulfillment there rather than in the political world.
