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Progressive Movement (captioned) — Transcript

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  1. 0:16♪
  2. 0:35♪ [Patriotic music]
  3. 0:42♪
  4. 1:36[Man] In the battle with the slum,
  5. 1:38we win or we perish.
  6. 1:41Either wipe out the slum, or it wipes out us.
  7. 1:45There is no middle way.
  8. 1:48Jacob Riis, 1902.
  9. 1:52[Man] There was a common and widespread spirit
  10. 1:53of revolt among the people,
  11. 1:56a movement of the new generation toward more democracy.
  12. 1:58Nearly everyone felt it.
  13. 2:01Robert La Follette, 1911.
  14. 2:04[Narrator] Between 1870 and 1920,
  15. 2:0726 million immigrants came to live in the United States.
  16. 2:12After 1900, most came from Southern and Eastern Europe
  17. 2:16and settled mainly in the largest cities.
  18. 2:19Here, they worked in small sweatshops
  19. 2:21and giant industrial workplaces
  20. 2:24which boomed like they never had before.
  21. 2:30A single company--
  22. 2:31John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil--
  23. 2:33controlled 90% of all oil business
  24. 2:36in the United States.
  25. 2:39Corporations conspired with each other
  26. 2:41to keep prices high and wages low,
  27. 2:44swindling consumers and workers in a single stroke.
  28. 2:49Violent labor strikes,
  29. 2:51corporate giants driving smaller operators
  30. 2:54out of business,
  31. 2:55cities plagued by crime and poverty...
  32. 2:58to many Americans, it appeared that industrialization
  33. 3:02was threatening the future of the nation.
  34. 3:07What would become of the nation's cities,
  35. 3:09flooded with new people and new problems?
  36. 3:13What would become of the nation's gigantic industries,
  37. 3:16gaining so much steam and power?
  38. 3:19What would become of the United States itself?
  39. 3:23These were the enormous questions
  40. 3:25that progressivism would try to answer.
  41. 3:41The nation was justly proud of its democratic heritage.
  42. 3:45But how could democracy survive
  43. 3:46the grave new challenges of a brave new century?
  44. 3:51Some of the first answers were provided by women.
  45. 3:55The most well-known was Jane Addams,
  46. 3:57who tried to bring the poor and the rich,
  47. 4:00the immigrant and the native-born together
  48. 4:02under a single roof.
  49. 4:04She called it Hull House.
  50. 4:08Occupying an old building
  51. 4:09in an immigrant neighborhood of chicago,
  52. 4:11Addams and her fellow residents
  53. 4:13provided newcomers with English lessons,
  54. 4:16employment advice, and child care.
  55. 4:19Women also pressed for expanded government services
  56. 4:22which they called municipal housekeeping
  57. 4:25or, more commonly, progressivism.
  58. 4:28[Man] progressivism became a word
  59. 4:30on everyone's lips
  60. 4:31in the early 20th century,
  61. 4:34and it meant the quest to make progress,
  62. 4:37to bring about reforms
  63. 4:40that would tend to some severe problems
  64. 4:43that were plaguing American society,
  65. 4:46that were plaguing American politics,
  66. 4:48that were plaguing the American economy.
  67. 4:51So progressivism meant the march for greater progress.
  68. 4:55[Man] One good example
  69. 4:57is the child labor reform movement,
  70. 5:00where a lot of people--
  71. 5:01a lot of women, especially, and social reformers--
  72. 5:04got very excited about young children working in factories.
  73. 5:07in this period, often,
  74. 5:108-, 10-year-olds worked in factories,
  75. 5:13sometimes 10, 12 hours a day.
  76. 5:15[Narrator] Flooding into schools,
  77. 5:17women demanded medical checkups for students.
  78. 5:21In city health departments.
  79. 5:22They promoted water purification
  80. 5:24and milk inspection.
  81. 5:26At departments of labor,
  82. 5:28they reported the illegal employment of children in sweatshops,
  83. 5:32and at departments of housing,
  84. 5:34they noted fire-code and crowding violations.
  85. 5:38Joining hands with a new generation
  86. 5:40of male reformers,
  87. 5:42these progressive women saw themselves as the saviors
  88. 5:44of the United States' wretched urban poor.
  89. 5:55Often, though, the poor themselves,
  90. 5:57especially immigrants,
  91. 5:59wanted no part of progressive reform.
  92. 6:01Across the nation's cities, for example,
  93. 6:04progressives helped plan new parks and playgrounds,
  94. 6:07but immigrants and workers
  95. 6:09preferred ball fields and sandlots
  96. 6:11to the lush, landscaped gardens
  97. 6:13that the reformers had created.
  98. 6:15At schools, meanwhile, working-class Americans
  99. 6:18resented reform
  100. 6:19such as mandatory medical inspection of children.
  101. 6:23When a young boy came home
  102. 6:25with a note complaining about his body odor,
  103. 6:27his mother sent her own curt note back--
  104. 6:30"Teacher, Johnny ain't no rose.
  105. 6:33Learn him. Don't smell him."
  106. 6:37Many immigrants also worried that progressive reformers
  107. 6:39wanted to destroy their ethnic cultures.
  108. 6:43Pushing for trained teachers, improved testing,
  109. 6:46and other reforms,
  110. 6:47the progressives argued that better schools
  111. 6:49would help Americanize
  112. 6:51the nation's newest arrivals.
  113. 6:54[Woman] In forsaking the land of their birth,
  114. 6:56immigrants forsake customs and traditions of that land.
  115. 6:59They have an obligation in adopting a new country
  116. 7:02to adopt the language and customs of that country.
  117. 7:06Julia Richman, 1905.
  118. 7:11[Narrator] Nowhere was the clash
  119. 7:12between progressives and immigrants greater
  120. 7:14than in the question of alcohol.
  121. 7:17Since before the civil war,
  122. 7:18reformers had tried to rid "demon rum"
  123. 7:21from the nation's lips.
  124. 7:23In the progressive era, they changed their focus
  125. 7:26from the liquor itself
  126. 7:27to the place it was consumed--the saloon.
  127. 7:31Well, the progressives,
  128. 7:33usually from upper-class backgrounds,
  129. 7:36many of them women,
  130. 7:37thought the saloon was a bad influence on the neighborhood.
  131. 7:40They saw children going into the saloons
  132. 7:42to get pails of beer.
  133. 7:44They saw, sometimes, prostitutes hanging out at the saloons.
  134. 7:49They saw men hanging out there and spending their money
  135. 7:50when they thought they should be home.
  136. 7:53[Woman] People were living in homes
  137. 7:54that were crowded, damp, and unsanitary.
  138. 7:57The saloon would be warm and inviting.
  139. 8:00You could sit around and have camaraderie.
  140. 8:02For many ethnic communities,
  141. 8:04the saloon was the place
  142. 8:05where you got your paycheck cashed.
  143. 8:08it was where you found out local news
  144. 8:11or news from home,
  145. 8:12you found out whether there were jobs available,
  146. 8:15you made your connection to the local political party
  147. 8:17so you could have some leverage in elections,
  148. 8:22and just the sort of basic, neighborhood hangout.
  149. 8:32[Man] Time and time again,
  150. 8:34in private and in public,
  151. 8:36leaders have said they are out for themselves and their own--
  152. 8:40not for the public, but for me and my friends--
  153. 8:44not for New York, but for Tammany.
  154. 8:48[Narrator] Lincoln Steffens was one of the muckrakers--
  155. 8:50the journalists who exposed the waste and greed
  156. 8:53of the modern United States.
  157. 8:55One of the famous investigations
  158. 8:58was on the U.S. Senate
  159. 9:00called "The Treason of the Senate,"
  160. 9:03and the point here was that the senators
  161. 9:06were so tied to the economic powers
  162. 9:10that put them in office that they were treasonous
  163. 9:14to the interest of the United States
  164. 9:16and to the people of the United States.
  165. 9:18This article so enraged President Theodore Roosevelt
  166. 9:21that he gave a speech saying
  167. 9:23that these journalists are just going around raking muck
  168. 9:27just for muck's sake,
  169. 9:30and that's where the term muckraker comes from.
  170. 9:32[Narrator] Their investigations began in the slums
  171. 9:34and led upwards to urban political bosses
  172. 9:38like New York's George Washington Plunkitt.
  173. 9:41Bosses took bribes for city construction contracts
  174. 9:45or simply awarded them to their friends.
  175. 9:48Advance knowledge of a new project
  176. 9:50could be worth millions.
  177. 9:54Bosses also provided valuable services to immigrants.
  178. 9:57When they first arrived in the city,
  179. 9:59it was the boss who helped them obtain housing.
  180. 10:03In the winter, the boss provided coal.
  181. 10:05On Thanksgiving, he warmed hearts with a turkey.
  182. 10:09In return, all the newcomer had to do
  183. 10:11was vote for the boss and his party.
  184. 10:15Later, if he was especially loyal,
  185. 10:17the boss might give him a job
  186. 10:19in the police or fire department.
  187. 10:23They served their neighbors.
  188. 10:25In return, the neighbors voted for them.
  189. 10:27But the progressives got angry at the bosses,
  190. 10:29thinking that they were corrupt,
  191. 10:32thinking that they took money unfairly,
  192. 10:35so they had many campaigns
  193. 10:37to try to defeat the bosses
  194. 10:39and put in a more democratic system.
  195. 10:42In general, they failed.
  196. 10:43The bosses were so strong in most places
  197. 10:46that progressives failed to oust them,
  198. 10:49but it led to attempts to reform the city
  199. 10:53and, in many cases, to pass state laws
  200. 10:56about how elections should be handled and so forth.
  201. 10:59[Narrator] To free voters from boss control,
  202. 11:02progressives introduced the secret ballot.
  203. 11:05Voting had traditionally taken place in public,
  204. 11:08so the boss knew how you voted.
  205. 11:11That way he knew whom to reward and whom to punish.
  206. 11:14Under the new system, he could never tell.
  207. 11:18Reformers also won new voter registration laws
  208. 11:21to prevent bosses from stuffing ballot boxes
  209. 11:24with invented names
  210. 11:26or paying people to vote multiple times.
  211. 11:29And reformers won stronger civil service laws,
  212. 11:33requiring cities to award police, fire, and teaching jobs
  213. 11:36according to merit.
  214. 11:39No longer could the boss simply hire his supporters.
  215. 11:43Job seekers would now be screened by tests
  216. 11:46to measure how well they would perform.
  217. 11:57[Man] Mr. Vanderbilt, sir,
  218. 11:59does your railroad serve the public interest?
  219. 12:01[Vanderbilt] The public be damned.
  220. 12:03Of course we like to do everything possible for the benefit of humanity,
  221. 12:06but first, we see that we are benefiting ourselves.
  222. 12:12[Narrator] With as much passion
  223. 12:13as they fought urban bosses,
  224. 12:15muckrakers also attacked the nation's great corporations,
  225. 12:19or trusts.
  226. 12:20[Nell Irvin Painter] Now, if you have a trust--
  227. 12:23a large business working in one sector of the economy--
  228. 12:27and if you control enough of that economy,
  229. 12:30then you can raise prices.
  230. 12:32This is why people wanted to bust trusts--
  231. 12:36because prices were going up.
  232. 12:38One way to do that was to break up big companies.
  233. 12:46[Narrator] Ida Tarbell's exposé of the Standard Oil Company
  234. 12:46showed how its president, John D. Rockefeller,
  235. 12:48gobbled up smaller companies.
  236. 12:51Other muckrakers focused on the companies' mistreatment of workers,
  237. 12:55especially children.
  238. 12:57[Man] Crouched over the chutes,
  239. 12:58the boys sit hour after hour.
  240. 13:00Most of them become deformed
  241. 13:02and bent-backed like old men.
  242. 13:04Cut, broken or crushed fingers are common.
  243. 13:07sometimes, there's a worse accident.
  244. 13:09A terrific shriek is heard
  245. 13:11and a boy is mangled and torn in the machinery
  246. 13:14or disappears in the chute to be picked out later,
  247. 13:16smothered and dead.
  248. 13:19John Spargo, 1906.
  249. 13:22[Narrator] Upton Sinclair published a novel called "The Jungle."
  250. 13:26Set in the gritty meat-packing yards of Chicago,
  251. 13:29it exposed the gruesome filth
  252. 13:31within one of the United States'
  253. 13:33fastest-growing industries.
  254. 13:35"Meat was on the floor in the dirt and sawdust
  255. 13:38"Where workers had tramped and spit.
  256. 13:41"Thousands of rats raced about.
  257. 13:44"Packers would put poisoned bread out for them,
  258. 13:46"And then rats, bread, meat
  259. 13:49would go into the hoppers together."
  260. 13:53[Narrator] Like urban bosses, the reformers said,
  261. 13:55these companies put private profit over public good.
  262. 14:00In the late 19th and early 20th century,
  263. 14:02large numbers of workers were not unionized,
  264. 14:04did not have representation,
  265. 14:06could not bargain with their employers.
  266. 14:09If they were in a workspace that was dangerous
  267. 14:12and they went to their boss and they said,
  268. 14:14"I'm worried about this staircase
  269. 14:16"because every time I go up and down the staircase,
  270. 14:19"This stair waggles,
  271. 14:20and I'm afraid I'll fall and break my head,"
  272. 14:23and the employer could just say, "Bye. You're fired."
  273. 14:28And if something happened--
  274. 14:30say that worker decided to keep the job,
  275. 14:32to go up and down the staircase,
  276. 14:34and one day, the stair broke,
  277. 14:36the worker fell and broke an arm, couldn't work.
  278. 14:40What do they get? Nothing.
  279. 14:42So one progressive reform, if you will,
  280. 14:45was workers' compensation,
  281. 14:48and workers' compensation means that a worker
  282. 14:51will get some money
  283. 14:52either from the state or from the corporation if injured.
  284. 14:57[Narrator] Unable to make businesses
  285. 14:59treat their workers with greater fairness,
  286. 15:01progressives turned to state and local governments.
  287. 15:05They won new laws to regulate what railroads
  288. 15:08and other big companies could charge.
  289. 15:11They placed restrictions on lobbying
  290. 15:13and campaign donations by corporations,
  291. 15:15which had often bribed state legislators.
  292. 15:19But what if a trust did business
  293. 15:21in many states?
  294. 15:23Companies like Standard Oil
  295. 15:25had operations all over the country.
  296. 15:28To control these gigantic industries,
  297. 15:31progressives had to turn to the federal government.
  298. 15:35In the White House, they found a supporter
  299. 15:38in the youngest man
  300. 15:39to ever occupy the nation's highest office.
  301. 15:42An asthmatic child, frail and sickly,
  302. 15:45Theodore Roosevelt developed into an avid writer,
  303. 15:48a skilled hunter,
  304. 15:50and a symbol of everything that was manly
  305. 15:52about the United States.
  306. 15:55Whether leading Rough Riders
  307. 15:57up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War
  308. 16:00or leading his presidential cabinet
  309. 16:02on trail rides through Rock Creek Park,
  310. 16:04Teddy Roosevelt cut a figure
  311. 16:06that was literally larger than life.
  312. 16:10[Man] He wore a tall black hat
  313. 16:11and he strode along with the physical power of a landslide.
  314. 16:15Never before or since have i been so much impressed
  315. 16:18by physical impact of a human being.
  316. 16:21--Hutchins Hapgood.
  317. 16:23[Narrator] As president,
  318. 16:25Roosevelt boasted that he would bust America's trusts
  319. 16:28just like he had killed Spaniards during the war.
  320. 16:32But Teddy's trust-busting was more talk than action.
  321. 16:36Instead of dividing trusts into smaller companies,
  322. 16:40Roosevelt tried to regulate them.
  323. 16:44To address the meat-packing horrors that Upton Sinclair described,
  324. 16:47Roosevelt signed the Meat Inspection Act,
  325. 16:50which required refrigeration and other health precautions.
  326. 16:55To control the sale of harmful patent medicines,
  327. 16:58He backed the Pure Food & Drug Act,
  328. 17:01which banned false labeling on packages.
  329. 17:04And to conserve the nation's dwindling forests,
  330. 17:07Roosevelt placed millions of acres under federal management.
  331. 17:12But who, exactly, would administer these new laws
  332. 17:15and protect the public's interests?
  333. 17:17In case after case, the answer was the same--
  334. 17:20a federal agency or department.
  335. 17:23The Meat Inspection Act authorized a branch
  336. 17:25of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
  337. 17:28to examine meat packing.
  338. 17:30The Pure Food & Drug Act created the Food and Drug Administration
  339. 17:34to approve new drugs for sale.
  340. 17:38The new national forests were administered by a Bureau of Forestry,
  341. 17:42which would evolve into the United States Forest Service.
  342. 17:46[Man] Governors of the several states and gentlemen,
  343. 17:50the occasion for this meeting lies in the fact
  344. 17:53that the natural resources of our country
  345. 17:55are in danger of exhaustion
  346. 17:58if we permit the old, wasteful methods of exploiting them longer, to continue.
  347. 18:03As a people, we have a right and duty
  348. 18:05to protect ourselves and our children
  349. 18:08against the wasteful development of our natural resources.
  350. 18:11President Theodore Roosevelt,
  351. 18:14National Conservation Congress, 1908.
  352. 18:19[Narrator] Fighting big business,
  353. 18:20progressivism helped create big government
  354. 18:23and cemented the marriage between them both.
  355. 18:26The federal government had largely been responsible
  356. 18:29for taxes on imports and exports
  357. 18:31and for having an army.
  358. 18:35It had not been responsible for making sure
  359. 18:37that if people got hurt on the job,
  360. 18:40that they could get some kind of care.
  361. 18:42It had not been responsible for making sure that food was safe to eat.
  362. 18:46That was a national-level reform.
  363. 18:49These were new ideas,
  364. 18:51that the government should be involved in those issues.
  365. 18:56[Narrator] The progressives also turned
  366. 18:58to the federal government
  367. 18:59to manage the nation's diminishing share
  368. 19:01of natural resources.
  369. 19:03By 1900, the government had sold or given away
  370. 19:07most publicly owned lands in the western part of the country.
  371. 19:11Claiming to speak for the larger interests
  372. 19:13of society and future generations,
  373. 19:17Roosevelt added more than 100 million acres
  374. 19:19to the national forest system
  375. 19:22and prosecuted hundreds of violators
  376. 19:24of public land laws,
  377. 19:26recovering millions of acres,
  378. 19:27which were placed under federal management.
  379. 19:31Roosevelt's objective was to conserve national resources
  380. 19:34for future use.
  381. 19:43Theodore Roosevelt's hand-picked successor
  382. 19:45in the White House, William Howard Taft,
  383. 19:47broke up more trusts than trustbusting Teddy.
  384. 19:52Roosevelt was outraged.
  385. 19:54Trusts, he believed, were here to stay.
  386. 19:57The president's job
  387. 19:58was to make them fairer, not smaller.
  388. 20:01So in 1911, Roosevelt announced his bid
  389. 20:04to recapture the presidency.
  390. 20:06Since Taft had a lock-hold
  391. 20:08on Roosevelt's old republican party,
  392. 20:11Teddy ran under a new banner--
  393. 20:13the progressive party.
  394. 20:15[Roosevelt] No effort should be made
  395. 20:16to destroy a big corporation
  396. 20:18merely because it is big,
  397. 20:21but all business should be carefully supervised,
  398. 20:24regulated, and controlled by governmental authority.
  399. 20:27[Narrator] Although it was a three-way election,
  400. 20:30the real race was between Theodore Roosevelt
  401. 20:32and the democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson,
  402. 20:36the reform governor of New Jersey.
  403. 20:39A former college professor,
  404. 20:40Wilson seemed cold and distant
  405. 20:43to most people who met him.
  406. 20:45[Man] His handshake felt like
  407. 20:47a 10-cent pickled mackerel in brown paper--
  408. 20:49irresponsive and lifeless.
  409. 20:51He is a spare, ascetic, repressed creature,
  410. 20:54a kind of frozen flame of righteous intelligence.
  411. 20:57William Allen White, 1912.
  412. 21:01[Narrator] In his 1912 campaign,
  413. 21:03Wilson proposed not merely to regulate the trusts,
  414. 21:07but to rid the country of them, once and for all.
  415. 21:10[Wilson] Mr. Roosevelt did not anywhere condemn the great corporations.
  416. 21:15All that is proposed to do is to take them under control and regulation.
  417. 21:20Shall we try to get the grip of monopoly away from our lives, or shall we not?
  418. 21:26Shall we say monopoly is inevitable, that all we can do is to regulate it?
  419. 21:32Then there is no hope for the people of the United States.
  420. 21:36[Narrator] Calling his platform "the New Freedom,"
  421. 21:38Wilson promised to free the United States from the trusts
  422. 21:42and restore an economy of small shops and factories.
  423. 21:46Roosevelt, Wilson's opponent, called his program "the New Nationalism,"
  424. 21:51since it accepted large corporations
  425. 21:53but tried to make them work in the national interest.
  426. 21:57So the 1912 presidential election offered Americans
  427. 22:00two very different visions of their country.
  428. 22:04They voted for the man who promised to bring back
  429. 22:06the world of small business-- the corner grocer, not the giant corporation.
  430. 22:13Woodrow Wilson proved to be a very effective president,
  431. 22:16but he never did deliver on his promise to bust the trusts.
  432. 22:21He did win passage of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act,
  433. 22:25which limited the size of trusts,
  434. 22:27but he also signed into law the Federal Reserve Act,
  435. 22:30which created a national banking system.
  436. 22:33Rather than breaking up big banks,
  437. 22:35the new federal reserve system linked them into a centrally-controlled
  438. 22:39network of unprecedented size and power.
  439. 22:48[Man] Any passerby can enter and use public lavatories in government buildings,
  440. 22:51while citizens of color who do the work of the government are excluded.
  441. 22:57As equal citizens, we are entitled to freedom from discrimination.
  442. 23:02Have you "a New Freedom" for white Americans
  443. 23:04and a new slavery for Afro-American fellow citizens?
  444. 23:07God forbid!
  445. 23:10William Monroe Trotter, 1914.
  446. 23:12[Narrator] The same man who declared "a New Freedom" for the United States
  447. 23:17ordered the segregation of Black Americans in federal buildings.
  448. 23:22Back in 1896, the Supreme Court had upheld the "separate but equal" laws of the American South
  449. 23:28in a case called Plessy vs. Ferguson.
  450. 23:31In the years that followed, racial segregation hardened throughout the South.
  451. 23:36Across the nation, the signs of segregation appeared over hotels,
  452. 23:41theaters, and water fountains.
  453. 23:43Worst of all, this era also witnessed a new,
  454. 23:46vicious outbreak of violence against Black Americans.
  455. 23:51Between 1885 and 1907,
  456. 23:53more Americans were lynched in the United States than legally executed.
  457. 23:59The vast majority of the victims were black.
  458. 24:03One of the underlying issues that made racism
  459. 24:07violent and dangerous
  460. 24:09in the early 20th century was that
  461. 24:11most black people were powerless.
  462. 24:14So in the early 20th century,
  463. 24:16even though there was a great migration
  464. 24:19of black southerners into the north and into the east,
  465. 24:22about 90% of black people still lived in the South.
  466. 24:26In the South, almost none could vote.
  467. 24:30They lived in a situation of segregation,
  468. 24:34which meant separation,
  469. 24:37but it also meant separate and terribly unequal.
  470. 24:43As segregation and violence spread,
  471. 24:45Black Americans began a sharp debate about how they should respond.
  472. 24:50On one side, stood Booker T. Washington, president of Tuskegee Institute.
  473. 24:56On the other stood W.E.B. Du Bois,
  474. 24:59a Harvard-educated historian and journalist.
  475. 25:03Born in 1856 to slave parents,
  476. 25:06Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee in 1881
  477. 25:11to help blacks learn useful trades.
  478. 25:14Instead of pushing for immediate equality, Washington said,
  479. 25:18blacks should develop vocational skills.
  480. 25:22[Man] To those of my race who underestimate the importance
  481. 25:26of friendly relations with the southern white man,
  482. 25:29I would say, cast down your bucket where you are.
  483. 25:34There is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
  484. 25:40In all things that are purely social, the races can be separate as the fingers,
  485. 25:45Yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
  486. 25:51--Booker T. Washington.
  487. 25:53[Narrator] Where Washington counseled patience and gradual uplift
  488. 25:57through hard work and black self-help,
  489. 25:59W.E.B. Du Bois demanded immediate and equal rights
  490. 26:03for African Americans in schools, housing, and employment.
  491. 26:08[Man] Mr. Washington insists on thrift and self-respect,
  492. 26:12but at the same time counsels silent submission to civic inferiority.
  493. 26:17Is it possible that nine million men can make progress in economic lines
  494. 26:22if they are deprived of political rights?
  495. 26:26By every peaceful method, we must strive for the rights
  496. 26:29which the sons of the fathers would fain forget--
  497. 26:33"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
  498. 26:38W.E.B. Du Bois, 1903.
  499. 26:44[Narrator] Other Americans lost their rights
  500. 26:46because of the content of their opinions
  501. 26:49rather than the color of their skins.
  502. 26:52One major target of persecution were the Socialists
  503. 26:55who believed that American workers,
  504. 26:58not their bosses should own the nation's industries.
  505. 27:03Socialist Party candidates won offices
  506. 27:06in over 300 cities,
  507. 27:08including Milwaukee and San Fransisco.
  508. 27:10In the 1912 presidential election,
  509. 27:13socialist candidate Eugene Debs won almost
  510. 27:15a million votes.
  511. 27:18To Debs, the Wilson-Roosevelt dispute over the size of American corporations
  512. 27:22made no sense.
  513. 27:24All that mattered was who owned them.
  514. 27:27[Eugene Debs] The republican, democratic, and progressive parties all stand for
  515. 27:31private ownership of the productive machinery used by workers.
  516. 27:35The Socialist Party is the one party which stands squarely for the abolition
  517. 27:40of industrial slavery.
  518. 27:42Eugene Victor Debs, 1912.
  519. 27:45[Narrator] This message struck fear into the hearts of the nations law enforcement
  520. 27:50authorities, who tried to silence the socialists by jailing them.
  521. 27:55Debs himself will be arrested and sentenced to federal prison for opposing
  522. 27:59the United States entry into World War I.
  523. 28:05Another group persecuted because of their opinions were
  524. 28:08the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies.
  525. 28:12Like the Socialists,
  526. 28:14the Wobblies thought that the laborers, not corporate kingpins
  527. 28:18should own the nations factories.
  528. 28:20But where Socialists preferred to work through the polls,
  529. 28:23the I.W.W. called for strikes and sabotage against big businesses.
  530. 28:30So businessmen organized groups of vigilantes to harass and intimidate Wobblies.
  531. 28:35Wobblies were beaten, branded,
  532. 28:37and forced to kiss the American flag on their knees.
  533. 28:41Some were even shot and killed.
  534. 28:44Like Eugene Debs,
  535. 28:46hundreds of Wobblies would be hauled off to prison
  536. 28:49during the First World War.
  537. 28:56Back before the turn of the century,
  538. 28:58Jane Addams and her settlement house movement
  539. 29:00helped usher in the era of progressive reform.
  540. 29:04Suffragists, like Carrie Chapman Catt,
  541. 29:06would help bring the era to a close
  542. 29:09by finally winning women's right to vote.
  543. 29:12The suffragists argued for the ballot as a way to ensure the progressive triumph.
  544. 29:17If women had the vote, they claimed, the bosses would fall.
  545. 29:21Saloons would disappear, and the United States of America
  546. 29:24would be an altogether better place.
  547. 29:27[Jane Addams] Public spirited women who wish to use the ballot
  548. 29:30do not wish to do the work of men.
  549. 29:32They simply want an opportunity to do their own work
  550. 29:35and to take care of those affairs which naturally,
  551. 29:38and historically, belong to women.
  552. 29:40May we not fairly say that American women need the vote in order to preserve the home?
  553. 29:46Jane Addams, 1910.
  554. 29:48[Narrator] Yet, suffragists also embraced the dark underside of progressivism:
  555. 29:53racial and ethnic bigotry.
  556. 29:55Many women argued for the vote in racist terms,
  557. 29:59promising that the female ballot
  558. 30:01would help keep white protestants in charge.
  559. 30:04[Olivia Brown] There are three times as many American-born women
  560. 30:08as the whole foreign population.
  561. 30:10So the votes of women will be the only means of overcoming
  562. 30:14this foreign influence and maintaining our free institutions.
  563. 30:19We are in danger of Catholic domination.
  564. 30:22There is no possible safety unless women are given the suffrage.
  565. 30:27Olivia Brown, 1889.
  566. 30:30[Belle Kearney] Of all the women in the South who can read and write,
  567. 30:33ten out of every eleven are white.
  568. 30:35The enfranchisement of women would ensure immediate,
  569. 30:38and durable white supremacy.
  570. 30:41Belle Kearney, 1903.
  571. 30:46[Narrator] Racial prejudices also helped push through a new constitutional
  572. 30:51amendment to ban the sell of alcohol.
  573. 30:53Prohibition swept the South
  574. 30:55when false rumors of drunken, rampaging blacks
  575. 30:58enveloped the region.
  576. 31:04The countries entrance into the First World War in 1917
  577. 31:08pushed prohibition over the top.
  578. 31:11The grain used to make alcohol was needed for the war effort
  579. 31:15and drinking was becoming, not merely unwise but un-American,
  580. 31:20since the German enemy consumed alcohol.
  581. 31:25World War I would spell the end of progressive reform.
  582. 31:29Trust-busting came to a complete halt as corporations formed huge cartels
  583. 31:35to arm and equipped the nations soldiers.
  584. 31:38The war also brought a new cycle of prejudice and violence against minorities
  585. 31:43as race riots flared across U.S. cities
  586. 31:46and thousands of immigrants were arrested or deported.
  587. 31:51The progressives still had unanswered questions.
  588. 31:55How would the United States regulate its enormous industrial corporations?
  589. 32:00How would it integrate its diverse racial and ethnic groups?
  590. 32:06How would it fulfill the democratic ideals
  591. 32:09upon which the nation was founded?
  592. 32:13Since the American Revolution,
  593. 32:15waves of reformers had called upon the nation
  594. 32:18to renew these ideals.
  595. 32:21Before the Civil War,
  596. 32:22they fought to eliminate slavery, drunkenness, and poverty.
  597. 32:27The progressives picked up this reform spirit,
  598. 32:30which would reappear during the 1930s, and again in the 1960s.
  599. 32:36Behind all of these movements
  600. 32:38lay the distinctive American faith that
  601. 32:41"We can remake the world."
  602. 32:49♪

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