Founders v. Progressives Background Essay

Rapid technological and social change at the end of the nineteenth century led to many challenges for the United States. Monopolistic business practices jeopardized a competitive and fair economy for small businesses and the health and safety of employees. Rapid growth of cities, which contributed to overcrowding, poverty, and disease, encouraged the growth of corrupt political machines that exchanged some minimal public services for votes and political loyalty to bosses. The Progressive Movement of the 1890s was a middle-class movement that saw government as the potential solution to these challenges and sought to make government more efficient, more responsive to human needs, less corrupt, and less dependent on political change. Starting on the local level and building to reform state and national politics as well, Progressives hoped to expand government action to apply scientific solutions to the complexity of modern life. Progressives believed elected officials should appoint experts in executive agencies who were immune to political considerations to study and implement sound policies on the basis of their advanced knowledge. Progressives implemented changes on the basis of the idea that experts with good motives had moved beyond the need for the precautions of limited government and the contentious debates and sometimes mixed results of popular government. The Founders, by contrast, believed in a self-governing representative government of the sovereign people. Because of human nature, various constitutional principles such as separation of powers and checks and balances were introduced to limit tyranny. The Founders believed in an energetic though limited government to protect liberty and natural rights.

Concurrent with this movement was the age of U.S. imperialism, as Progressives envisioned the expansion of U.S. influence in the world. Progressive approaches envisioned the spread of democracy around the world to improve other nations, which encouraged the extension of the role of government in international affairs. As the twentieth century began, the United States increased its presence in far-flung areas of the globe including the Pacific, Caribbean, Latin America, among other regions. This mission to spread democracy during the early part of the twentieth century was often linked to the ideas of Social Darwinism and the search for trade markets for industry.

Furthermore, foreign and domestic emergencies characteristically contribute to the expansion of government’s role, and specifically to the expansion of executive power. The perceived need for expertise, urgency, and efficiency in decision-making increases in times of crisis, and several domestic and international crises arose in the first half of the twentieth century. In World War I (1914–1918), and again in the World War II (1939–1945), U.S. policy moved toward intervention in world affairs. Between the wars, the economy at first stalled and then experienced rapid growth. But then the Great Depression brought that growth to a halt. The Depression crippled not only the U.S. economy but also that of the world. As the twentieth century progressed, the United States became more involved economically and diplomatically in world affairs, involving the nation in world wars and the foreign entanglements George Washington warned against in his 1799 farewell address.

During the first half of the twentieth century, these domestic reforms and involvement in international conflicts helped pave the way for a significant reshaping of the U.S. government. Congress and successive presidents established hundreds of specialized agencies intended to address the urgent problems of the times. gradually became a central feature of U.S. government. Congress and successive presidents established hundreds of specialized agencies intended to address the urgent problems of the times. The list below is a few examples of these agencies. The result was the creation of an administrative state—a form of government in which unelected, specialized commissions and agencies make rules, implement those rules, and punish rule breakers. This bureaucracy, or government by commissions that operates independently of voter influence, gradually became a central feature of U.S. government.

The rapid technological and economic changes, along with new academic ideas during the nineteenth century, led to new theories about the role and purpose of government. The debate over the merits of this new approach would last well into the twentieth century and shape the character of political debates and discussions. In this activity, you will examine primary sources that reflect both the Founders’ and Progressives’ views of government. This debate, in many ways, continues to the present day.

 

World War I Administrative Agencies:
• War Industries Board
• War Labor Board
• Railroad Administration
• Shipping Board
• Fuel Administration
• Food Administration
• Committee on Public Information
• And more

New Deal “Alphabet” Agencies:
• Civil Works Administration
• Civilian Conservation Corps
• Farm Credit Administration
• Farm Security Administration
• Federal Communications Commission
• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
• Federal Housing Administration
• Federal Security Agency
• Federal Writers’ Project
• National Recovery Administration
• Public Works Administration
• Securities and Exchange Commission
• Social Security Board
• Tennessee Valley Authority
• Works Progress Administration
• And more

World War II Administrative Agencies:
• National Defense Research Committee
• Fair Employment Practices Committee
• National Defense Research Committee
• National War Labor Board
• Office of Censorship
• Office of Civilian Defense
• Office of Economic Stabilization
• Office of Price Administration
• Office of Production Management
• Office of Scientific Research and Development
• Office of War Mobilization
• Reconstruction Finance Corporation
• U.S. Department of Justice War Division
• U.S. Office of War Information
• War Manpower Commission
• War Production Board
• War Refugee Board
• War Research Service
• War Shipping Administration
• Writers’ War Board
• And more

Questions:

• Briefly compare the views of the Founders and the Progressives with regard to the government’s power.
• Define the terms administrative state and bureaucracy.
• How did the events of the first half of the twentieth century lead to a reshaping of the U.S. government?