A Short History of Progressive-ism

An essay by Nick Nickelson

To understand what the definition of progressive-ism is we need to turn once again to history.  Step back with me to the curtain raiser, the founding convention of the peoples party -better known as the Populist Party-in 1892. 
Progressive-ism rose from this movement in response to the inequities and inequality of the industrial revolution, witch was creating a vast increase in the growth and wealth of giant corporations, the growth of the railroads and the corruption of Government by these forces.  It was a political movement that addressed the  issues of the modernization of American civilization.

Corporatist practically owned and controlled government.  An 1886 supreme court ruled that corporations held the same rights  as an individual (Santa Clara county vs. Southern Pacific Railroad) The Bush appointees to the SCOTUS along with the other conservatives recently ruled corporations could spend all they wanted to affect  government legislation that would favor their interests.  The Senate by the late 19th century had come to be regarded as the millionaires old boy's club.   The gilded age was concentrating  vast wealth in the hands of a few families such as the Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Morgan and Carnegie.    While the masses (working class) lived in virtual poverty.  The ruling class used Darwin's recent theories to justify the rise of ruthless capitalism that flourished in the late 1800's early 1900's

The so called robber barons concluded that their behavior was justified as the natural law of survival of the fittest and was the inevitable outcome of history, Darwinism helped to justify not only the ruthless exploits of communists, but also the ruthless practices of capitalist monopolist such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.   Carnegie's conclusions were best summarized  when he said, " the law of competition, be it benign or not, is here, we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law maybe sometimes hard for the  individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department (quoted in Hsu, 1986 p. 10 ) John D. Rockefeller once said that the growth of a large business is merely survival of the fittest.  The working out of the law of nature ( Gent 1902 page 29)
Life for most  working people at the turn of the 20th century was nasty brutish and short.  The Meatpacking industry was rife with filth and disease, described by Upton Sinclair in his book "The Jungle "  (1906)      Snake oil salesmen were hawking medicinal products that were supposed to be good for what ailed you but were filled with alcohol  cocaine and who knows what else.

The Tenants of the lower east side of New York was the most densely populated place on earth.  Three story flats held as many as three families living on each floor with out houses that oozed sewage into the streets and into piles of horse manure three feet high.  40 % of the occupants died from disease.  The natural environment was being raped and pillaged by corporations for profit and with little regard for the consequences, and no regard for future generations.

Extraordinary times though has  a way of producing extraordinary men and into the breached stepped progressive minded men such as John Muir the great naturalist, Jacob Riis, Danish immigrant, resident of the lower East side,  author and illustrator of " How The Other Half Lives"  and Upton Sinclair author of "The Jungle" an expose of the filth and disease ridden Chicago meat packing industry.   These early progressives had great influence on politicians such as Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, Herbert Hoover,  William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, and Al Smith.

Hiram Johnson a liberal Republican who became governor of California in 1910 was instrumental in wresting control of the state government from the Southern Pacific Railroad and launching California's progressive era that lasted until 1966 when the conservative Ronald Reagan was elected governor and ended California's golden progressive era.
There is nothing idealized or  romantic about the difference between a society  who's arrangements roughly give every one a seat at the table and a slice of the pie and one who's institutions have been converted into a stupendous fraud.  That difference can be the difference between democracy and oligarchy.   Look at our history.  The progressive movement that started in the late 19th century, remade the American experience piece by piece until it peaked in the last third of the 20th century.